My Son Echolalia Scripting: need some answers and help

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Hello,

This is my first post on this forum. This seems to be mostly a place for aspies,, so please forgive me if I need to go somewhere else. I'll sure take suggestions about where else to go.
My son is 12 and has moderate to high functioning autism. Of all the issues that his autism has produced- both good and problematic - the most nerve wracking currently is his increasing scripting echolalia.

Since he was four years old, he spends hours (when my wife and I let him go that long) walking in circles and repeating tv, dvds, or computer games (in perfect pronunciation and pitch as he heard it). We know he is doing what is called “scripting” (repeating verbatim the scripts from these media). Some call it “tv talk.”

I have read another post on this forum that asked the same question… what the hell to do? Or how to reduce it? It really plays havoc in public, social interactions – or attempts to have them. It is difficult to even have a conversation with him (actually impossible). It takes a great deal of effort to snap him out of this scripting trance that he gets into. The only response (I’m summarizing here) from someone was that “it would eventually go away and to live with it patiently.”

Well, unfortunately, I’m here to tell you that it DOES NOT go away, at least for him in our instance. It has become increasingly worse in the past 8 years. My wife’ solution now is to ban him (when possible) from all media that he could memorize such as tv, dvd’s or vdeo games. Anything that has a talking audio track is fair game for his “scripting.”

I have read many forums from people asking for help from this same issue. All advice involves some sort of therapy or social stories or some “intervention” to address the issue. In not a single post I can find has anyone suggested cutting off the source of the scripts (all media). So, are my two specific questions:

Has anyone had any success with anything to reduce (even eliminate?) the scripting in such children?

What about taking away the main source of the scripting (tv and videos etc)? Or at least greatly reducing them. We have currently decided to do this and see if there is any improvement. Still, I’m open all and any things to try. Thanks in advance for answering.

There's a Parents' Discussion Forum. Maybe this should be posted there.

You should not discourage your son's use of echolalia. Many times it is an attempt to communicate wants and needs, and by trying to limit it or punish him for it, you are in effect discouraging his communication. There are things he is trying to communicate but does not have the words for. Is there some reason that you are against therapy for it?

I have HFA, rather than AS. I did scripting like that - still do it although much less than I did as a child. I'd repeat lines from movies, tv, etc. often - as well as repeat them over and over. I don't remember anything being done about that, by my parents, but I'm not sure if they did nothing about it. I had (and still do have, for many of those movies) all of the dialog memorized, with accent and pitch and all of that spot on.

Either way I do know that I did in general get worse with symptoms as I got older, and then as I got into my teens many ones, such as scripting, relaxed. So while I don't know how to help you make your son do less scripting, I know that at least in my case, it started relaxing on it's own as I got older, but that was not until somewhere around 14-16. From ages 8-13 I got worse with my symptoms.

I don't know how it is for other autistics but I would not personally be surprised if some of your son's symptoms relaxed with age - but I wouldn't be surprised if things get worse before they get better.

How has taking away media been working? It seems logical. Has he felt like he's being punished, though? That's how I think I'd feel.

Also while WP may have a lot of aspies, I notice a decent amount of auties on here.

I don't know if my post was helpful but I thought I'd share my experiences either way.

I don't think removing media will help. He obviously has an amazing memory, he could easily remember these scripts for the rest of his life. By removing media you just ensure that you will always hear the same ones instead of new ones.

It sounds like he is having fun. If he were my son I would expose him to some better media, like some good documentaries. Carl Sagan's Cosmos series would be an excellent one. He could learn so much by memorizing those.

Force him to watch only undubbed martial arts movies from China.

Either (a) he will become so exhausted trying to mimic the dialogue that he will outgrow the behavior.

Or (b) he wont outgrow the behavior and he will become fluent in both Mandarin, and in Cantonese!


And by that time he graduates from highschool those will be very lucrative skills to have in both government and in business!

Either way it will be a plus!

I know this sounds like a flippant joke, but seriously-I dont think you can force him out of this behavior so why not go with the flow a little bit and expirament?

Many parents are into "foriegn language immersion" for their kids.
So why not encourage him to watch the Spanish language soaps on Univision, and see what happens? Or to watch Lawrence Olivier do Hamlet on PBS, and see if he can duplicate the archaic language of the bard as spoken by a high brow actor. He might become the next Ralph Richardson, or Lawrence Olivier.

Also if a kid is forced to DO something ( as opposed to being punished for doing it)- theres a good chance he will get lazy and NOT do it!

One comment - this scripting doesn't have to be non-interactive. I do interactive scripting echolalia with both my father and my brother. When he's scripting, if you know the next line, try saying it to him. You could make a game of alternating lines from a script.

You can use memorized lines to communicate too. If you can't figure out your own words, you can use someone else's.

Cutting off media wouldn't work; would be worse than useless, actually. Say you stop the kid from memorizing TV, books, and music--he starts memorizing stuff from magazines, the writing on the cereal box, the way the garbage truck sounds on Thursday mornings, the recorded message on the answering machine.

If you have access to media, you have access to lots of different ways of saying things. You start building your library. You have lots and lots of different things that are said in different situations, and you start making patterns out of them. Eventually you pick up on the patterns, and say things that fit into the situation you're in. You start to get more practice with that, and eventually you're varying the expressions in your library to fit the specific pattern.

Don't think of this as an unwanted behavior you need to squelch. Some therapists think of it this way--usually the ones who think "normal is better, even at the expense of function"--but I don't agree with them. Memorizing and repeating things back can be a favorite game, a way of learning to understand patterns in communication, a way of understanding new things. Some people have mentioned "interactive scripting"--why not join his game? It could be fun for him, especially if you can memorize as well as he can.

I agree with the other posters -- especially if he is repeating with perfect "accent" as he heard it, encourage him to harness this ability and try his hand at learning foreign languages.

When someone on the spectrum succeeds in life, it is almost always by taking a special interest and making it financially successful. Knowing languages is always a marketable skill. This talent could lead him to special interests in languages that he has not yet tapped into.

_________________
If it don't come easy . . . .
. . . .hack it until it works right

Aspie score: 142/200 NT score: 64/200
AQ Score: 42
BAP: 109 aloof, 94 rigid and 85 pragmatic