Echolalia

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On Monday, I was having a discussion with my therapist about my ASD traits and mentioned to him for the first time how I need to repeat phrases in my head over and over again. He told me to look up echolalia and I did. It says it is common with people on the spectrum. I was wondering, how many of you experience echolalia or palilalia and how do you cope with it? Thank you

Wait, you mean echolalia can also be done in your head without actually using your mouth? Then I haven't grown out of it then.

By golly. Another thing. My immediate reaction: "Doesn't everyone do this? Is this autistic?".

I must have had that reaction a million times after reading something on this site.

I have this thing where i get hung up on certain words. For some weird reason, every time I spell the word "connection" I feel an urge to spell it "connexion", like Jane Austen did, because, you know, Jane Austen was always right, and anyways it's more satisfying that way.

So I see the letters themselves in my mind's eye, and then I hear the word repeatedly until I get annoyed with myself.

Yes, I know I'm weird.

I do that in my head too, but I had no idea it could be considered echolalia. I don't and never have repeated words verbally, so that's interesting to learn. Nice new avatar picture, by the way!

i also do it in my head and have been since i was pretty young. its a strange mixture of soothing and infuriating.
i don't really understand either because i don't have any urges to vocalize them. also a lot of the times its not even a real word or phrase its just repetitive rhythmic nonsense. i thought it was somewhat normal but maybe its not?

I get both, but palilalia more than echolalia. I also get a lot of coprolalia and copropraxia, and a wee bit of echopraxia. The palilalia is the most annoying as I usually get up saying one word over and over again (like 20-50+ times). Echolalia is less annoying as it's usually only say the thing five times a day, whereas the palilalia is only once or twice but each time it's lots. And the swearing ones are many many times an hour all day so I've got used to them. I should say I also have Tourettes which complicates matters significantly. I also do it my head a lot. I'd say it's definitely echolalia if it's in your head. It amuses me quite a lot, as I come out with a lot of random rubbish, at the moment the echolalia is mainly from friends (the telly show).

One question: What makes this different? I mean, everybody gets songs stuck in their head, right? You listen to the radio in the morning, and before you know it you have your own private rendition of Macarena (or insert other asinine pop song) playing on repeat inside your head for the rest of the day.

This happens to everyone, right? NT, autistic, doesn't matter. I just figured the same thing holds for words and phrases. Or doesn't it?

I have to admit I say stuff out loud, but I try not to do it around people. It's sort of like tasting the words to find their true character, if that makes sense. And kids do that, particularly when it comes to foreign languages.

One thing I find very troublesome on WP is that the members are an introspective lot, and I am constantly questioning whether something that is mentioned as an autistic trait is in fact something that is fairly common among people who are in some way sensitive. Or that it is something everybody does, but only introspective people are aware of.

I am deeply suspicious of the idea that people are sane just because they are NT. Everybody's got weird s**t in their heads.

Aren't writers the sort of people who would have words and phrases rumbling around in their heads, without necessarily being autistic?

I don't mean to be contrary, I would just really like someone to explain what makes this autistic. The element of repetition?

Odd coincidence seeing this post today. I was just looking this up earlier today myself. I found that it is called "Mental Echolalia", and I most definitely do this as well. Typically I'll do it when I hear the words someone is saying but the meaning isn't registering automatically, so my mind just starts repeating the phrase in my head almost like it's in a holding pattern until the part of my brain that can interpret it wakes up and engages.

(I should offer this disclaimer though: I'm not officially diagnosed as being "on the spectrum". Yet. I had my first evaluation yesterday and will have the second half of it next week. I should have results within a month.)

My echolalia was verbal when I was younger but now it's mental.

When I'm stressed I sometimes repeat words or phrases words or phrases words or phrases

I do that a lot. Also, if you tell me a joke then I will repeat it out usually before I laugh. I am not entirely sure why I do it with only jokes, it's very strange. I do it in my head all the time though, anything I hear will sort of echo around a bit for a short time.

I also used delayed echolalia a lot, I will often repeat things I have heard in movies or from other people in a conversation accent and all. I don't even have to think about it, it just happens.

Echolalia is vocal, not mental.
It is unconscious repetitions of vocalizations by self or others.
Conscious repetition or mental repetition are not echolalia.

I have an issue whenever I hear someone speaking with an accent. Accents are one of my interests (recognizing different accents and being able to identify the country/region, and being able to mimic them) and I often blurt out certain words that sound interesting because I want to reproduce the sound. I even married a guy with an accent.