Were you like this at all as a kid?

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Hi. I am new to this board and just posted to the Parent's section, but wanted to see if I can get some more responses on this board too. My son is almost 6 with very odd expressive language. He has been receiving speech therapy for almost 3 years he was late with speech and very echolalic as a 2-3 year old. Diagnosed by a neuropsychologist as on the spectrum with accompanying speech and language deficits but he is friendly and related, although his language makes it nearly impossible to communicate with kids his age.
The best way I can describe him is verbal, but not conversational. He can say what he wants, describe things he sees in simple sentences, etc. but beyond that, it’s repeating, jargon, talking to himself and saying things that are “off topic" (he just says whatever comes to mind without regards to whether it makes any sense to the listener). He is chatty, but very little of what he says makes any sense to an outsider - it's just snippets of things he has heard, is thinking about, or things that people have said to him. It is very odd. For instance, he evidently is having a memory of a teacher he hasn't seen in over a year, but is constantly repeating that he wants to see her.
Does this sound at all like any you at age 5 or 6? How did your language develop with age? I know there’s no way to predict how each child will develop, but just trying to get an idea what I can expect. Did the conversation eventually come in? There is definitely slow but gradual progress, but he is still a ways away from being able to hold a coherent conversation Any insight at all would be appreciated. Thanks!

When I was a kid, I was often made fun of for being in special ed because I had a speech impediment. Thankfully, I managed to grow out of it by the time I was 14.

As for your son, he should grow out of it as he progresses with age, but only time will tell.

I didn't talk at all until age 5 1/2.

Then I talked "normally," but a bit "pedantically" at times.

Sometimes, I would just say what was on my mind as well.

I began speaking at age 2, but only echolalically until around 6 or so.

I have memories from that time, or the time when I started to form more creative language, where I began to understand that I need to say something different to get something different. I didn't understand that my voice affected anything at all until around age 6.

And, it was reading that ultimately helped me. I didn't intuit that strings of sounds could be broken up and created into something new. I learned to read first, then I began to have creative use of language.

I, personally, will never fully outgrow my speech issues. It's not the way my brain is built. Even as I type this, I do it in odd sections and must do heavy editing to make it conform to grammar rules. Words simply do not come to me in the order that people understand them. I need to see them to reorganize them. I use an AAC (part-time) to organize my words.

My speech difficulties do limit me. It limits my desire to meet new people. Old friends learn to understand me, so I hold onto them. People usually finish my sentences for me (even people I don't know).

With that said, I consider myself to be pretty "successful" with my limitations. I am married with children. I've always been employed when I wanted to be (my biggest secret is a top-notch resume with pursuasive cover letter), all in my dream field in a job that requires expertise.

I think you'd be a fine person to get to know, Screen Name.

Hi,
Thanks for posting.

From the journals I read online, delayed speech development is indicative of core Autism. classical autism. Assuming he has it. Sounds like he does.

In aspergers, or high functioning autism, speech and reading develops ahead of time. Which happened to me. I was reading books before the age of 1yo. According to my mother. My younger brother didn't speak or read till the age of 3 or 4. But he definitely doesn't have autism. Don't know what that's about. He's an NT as far as I know, and he's good with dealing with people socially.

It may be your son has classical autism and is having fun with words. Which I do when nobody is looking too.

To learn about having a conversation, it may be useful to use english (or whatever language) as a second language materials. These materials have scripts of conversations about common topics and shows the back and forth of conversation well. From these, I understood what a conversation was and how to have one when I was a kid. Afterwards, I could have conversations with adults and children, even if I did say lots of weird things and socially inappropriate sometimes, but they were still back and forth conversations, which I never had before. I don't know when I would have learned to have conversations spontaneously if I hadn't learned from these materials. Perhaps I would have still struggled with conversations by teenage years if left to my own slow, sucky language development. My parents said I was like two different people before and after this language spurt at age 8, 9, 10.