Echolalia

From doing a little research, I learned that the form of talking that Easton is doing is called Echolalia. This means that Easton is:

"repeating or ”echoing” what another person has said. Children who are echolalic imitate what they have heard someone say in everyday life, lines they’ve listened to from a book, lyrics to a song, or a script from a show or movie. Professionals most often characterize children as “echolalic” when many of the words or phrases a child uses seem to be repetitions from a previous activity rather than new utterances a child comes up with on his own." (http://www.teachmetotalk.com/)

Easton can recite dialougue from Curious George episodes, as well as some from several other children's shows. He can say the lines in sync as the show is playing, and he uses them randomly throughout the day. He often does use them in the right context, however, which is good, but we are going to have to take his strengths in this kind of language to make him use it more productively...more often.

"Mommy, I need help!"
I found a great Web site called TeachMeToTalk.com that I think is going to be a great asset for us to help him develop better language skills. From just skimming through it, I have already learned several techniques that we can use. For example, since he echos what you are saying, we have to, from now on, say things to him the way he should be saying them. So, last night, I was working on gettting him to ask me for help. When he was frustrated about a toy breaking apart and not being able to put it together, he would hand it to me and cry out or grunt, wanting me to fix it for him. Each time he did this, I would say "Mommy, I need help." I did this over and over again throughout a one hour time period or so. About 30 minutes later, after he had moved on to playing with something else, he was trying to climb a chair and turned to me and said "Mommy, I need help!" Awesome! He picked that up and used it in the right way. Progress!

According to his speech therapist, Easton's language usage is on the level of a 1 and a half year old child (mainly, though, because he won't point to objects, which deducts a lot of points), so we have a lot of work to do. But, I will do anything to help my little guy!