ECHAUTISM · On the nature of autistic echolalia

ECHAUTISM, carried out jointly between CARE at Boston University and ACTE at the Universit libre de Bruxelles, aims at investigating the nature of echolalia in autism from a linguistic, behavioural and neural perspective. Echolalia, the exact repetition of the words of others, is a salient clinical feature of autism that is defined by some as a senseless stereotyped and repetitive behaviour and by others as a communicative unusual form of language. ECHAUTISM will ask three specific questions in regard to the nature of echolalia in autism. First, it will investigate whether autistic echolalia should be considered as a symptomatologic manifestation of repetitive behaviours or a late onset form of typical speech imitation. This will be answered by qualitatively and quantitatively describing and comparing the repetitive and the spontaneous speech production of a group of echolalic autistic preschoolers, a group of echolalic autistic adolescents and a group of 2- to 3-year-old typically developing children on measures of linguistic complexity, communicative behaviour, and brain activity. Second, it will ask whether echolalia can function, for some autistic children at least, as a gestalt strategy to language acquisition. This will be answered by evaluating the language abilities of the group of autistic preschoolers one year later to assess whether their speech became more functional and productive. Finally, it will provide an update on the perception of and actions taken towards echolalia by autistic childrens primary caregivers. This will be answered by disseminating a survey among speech-language pathologists specialised in autism and parents of autistic children. ECHAUTISM will have a significant impact on the researcher's career by internationalising her research profile and training her in cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques. Its outcomes should be relevant for both scientific and clinical perspectives of autism.