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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1975

[Transcortical aphasia and echolalia; problems of speech initiative].

Transcortical aphasia accompanied by echolalia occurs with malacias involving the postero-median part of the frontal lobe which includes the supplementary motor field of Penfield and is nourished by the anterior cerebral artery. The syndrome manifests itself in such cases even in fine detials in the same form as does in Pick's atrophy. The same also holds true for cases in which a tumour involves the region mentioned. Sentences or fragments of sentences are echolalised; tendency to perseveration is very marked. It is hardly, if at all, possible to evaluate the verbal understanding of these patients. Analysis of their behaviour supports the assumption that they have not lost the adaptation to some situations. Echolalia is often associated with forced grasping and other compulsory phenomena. Therefore, it may be interpreted as a sign of disinhibition of the acusticomotor reflex present during the development of the speech. Competition between the intentionality and the appearance of compulsory phenomena greatly depends on the general condition of the patient, particularly on the clarity of consciousness. The integrity of the postero-median part of the frontal lobe is indespensable for a normal reaction by speech to stimuli received from the sensory areas. The influence of the supplementary motor field on speech intention seems to be linked to the dominant hemisphere. In case lesions of the territory of the anterior cerebral artery and the cortico-bulbar neuron system are coexisting in the dominant hemisphere, the speech disturbance shifts to complete motor aphasia. In such cases the pathomechanism is analogous to that of the syndrome of Liepmann, i.e., right-sided hemiparesis with left-sided apraxia. So-called transcortical motor aphasia without echolalia can be caused by loss of stimuli from the sensory fields.

Aged↗
PubMed1978

Social and attentional aspects of echolalia in highly echolalic mentally retarded persons.

Echolalia was examined in a sample of highly echolalic mentally retarded individuals. When presented with a standard set of questions, under conditions differing in appropriateness for exchange of discourse (e.g., questions presented with examiner and patient face-to-face vs. questions presented with the examiner's face averted vs. questions addressed towards another person sitting silently beside the patient), subjects' frequency of echolalia varied. Besides showing considerable sensitivity to aspects of discourse exchange, subjects exhibited some limited capacity for processing linguistic information.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Echolalia: issues and clinical applications.

Echolalic behaviors have been reported within the context of various pathologies but have remained poorly defined. Consequently, it is not easy to determine whether and to what extent normal repetition can be separated from pathological echoing. Hence, it is unclear whether the occurrence of echolalic behavior may be useful for differential diagnostic purposes. Also, much room is left for controversies about the clinical management of echolalic behavior. This article reviews the various conditions associated with echolalia and the role of repetitions in normal language behavior. Suggestions are made in terms of the various dimensions along which echolalic behavior should be assessed, as well as of the desirability of particular intervention techniques.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

Regressive language in severe head injury.

In a follow-up study of 50 patients with severe head injuries three patients had echolalia. One patient with initially global aphasia had echolalia for some weeks when he started talking. Another patient with severe diffuse brain damage, dementia, and emotional regression had echolalia. The dysfunction was considered a detour performance. In the third patient echolalia and palilalia were details in a total pattern of regression lasting for months. The patient, who had extensive frontal atrophy secondary to a very severe head trauma, presented an extreme state of regression returning to a foetal-body pattern and behaving like a baby.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

Bedtime soliloquies and linguistic competence in autism.

This study investigates the linguistic competence of an autistic child by means of her bedtime soliloquies. It suggests the usefulness of such monologues as a diagnostic tool and addresses the question of the interrelationship between echolalia and language development. Three bedtime soliloquies of an eight-year-old echolalic autistic child are analyzed along the dimensions of echolalia versus propositional speech, types of ungrammaticality produced, and analysis of connected discourse. The results are compared with those of a normal child reported earlier in the literature. The present analysis demonstrates the difficulties in the judgement of propositional versus echolalic speech. The types of ungrammaticality were found to be useful indicators of apparent differences between the acquisition process in the normal and the autistic child. They revealed that the autistic child may use specific linguistic strategies only minimally utilized by the normal child. The discourse analysis points up additional differences as well as similarities in the way the autistic subject organizes her utterances in connected discourse. It also shows that the autistic child has specific but limited linguistic competence. It is hypothesized that the autistic subject acquires more functional, useful language by a process of gradually breaking down echolalic patterns. In terms of therapy, these findings would support the use of echolalia as a basis for language training.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1975

Control of echolalic speech in psychotic children.

Immediate echolalia, a common language disorder in psychotic children, was studied in a series of replicated single-subject designs across six schizophrenic and five normal children. In Experiment 1, each child was presented with several questions and commands, some of which set the occasion for specific, appropriate responses and some of which did not. The former were referred to as discriminative stimuli and the latter, as neutral stimuli. The psychotic children tended to echo the neutral stimuli while responding appropriately to the discriminative stimuli; the normal children, in contrast, typically echoed neither type of stimulus. In Experiment 2, three psychotic children were taught appropriate responses to each of several neutral stimuli. Following this training, the children generally responded appropriately to these stimuli without echoing. A plausible interpretation of these results is that the neutral stimuli were initially incomprehensible or meaningless to the children (whereas the discriminative stimuli were comprehensible or meaningful) and that verbal incomprehensibility may be one important determinant of immediate echolalia. Finally, the results are noteworthy in that they isolate a sufficient treatment variable (i.e., the reinforcement of alternative, nonecholalic responses) for eliminating instances of this language anomaly.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Personal pronouns and the autistic child.

The long-recognized difficulties of the speaking autistic child with the use and nonuse of personal pronouns ["reversals" and "avoidance"] have been generally attributed either to the nondifferentiation of the self or to the frequently coexisting symptom of echolalia. These explanations are reconsidered in this eclectic analysis from the perspective of current theory and research in development of self and of language. Emphasis is on studies of normal development of personal pronouns and the roles played in that process by listening, echoic memory, mitigated echolalia [recoding], and person deixis. It is concluded that multiple developmental obstacles of a social, cognitive, and grammatical nature underlie the more obvious symptoms and militate against the child's resolution of labels and their referents. Treatment alternatives that de-emphasize the primacy of I are offered.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1979

Severe impairments of social interaction and associated abnormalities in children: epidemiology and classification.

The prevalence, in children aged under 15, of severe impairments of social interaction, language abnormalities, and repetitive stereotyped behaviors was investigated in an area of London. A "socially impaired" group (more than half of whom were severely retarded) and a comparison group of "sociable severely mentally retarded" children were identified. Mutism or echolalia, and repetitive stereotyped behaviors were found in almost all the socially impaired children, but to a less marked extent in a minority of the sociable severely retarded. Certain organic conditions were found more often in the socially impaired group. A subgroup with a history of Kanner's early childhood autism could be identified reliably but shared many abnormalities with other socially impaired children. The relationships between mental retardation, typical autism, and other conditions involving social impairment were discussed, and a system of classification based on quality of social interaction was considered.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Pantomimic representation in psychotic children.

Previous research suggests that verbal deficits among psychotic children may be paralleled by deficits in nonverbal pantomime. However, certain questions such as the level of pantomime exhibited by psychotic children, its susceptibility to modification, and its relation to other symbolic functions have not been systematically examined. To investigate these issues, 24 psychotic children were required to represent absent objects (e.g., toothbrush) via pantomime after receiving verbal instructions or instructions accompanied by a model demonstrating the pantomime. Also, measures of receptive and expressive speech, human figure drawings, and pretend play were obtained. The findings indicated very few complete failures in pantomime; higher pantomime performance when a model was provided although even in this condition most responses consisted of low-level substitutions of a body part in place of the absent object; and significant relationships between pantomime and measures of receptive vocabulary, echolalia, drawing, and play. The relationship of the findings to symbolic functioning in normal children and their relevance to understanding symbolic deficits in psychotic children are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

An operant procedure to teach an echolalic, autistic child to answer questions appropriately.

An operant conditioning procedure to teach an autistic patient with rapid immediate echolalia to answer questions correctly was devised. The procedure involved positively reinforcing the patient immediately after a correct response and preventing incorrect responses. It is simple to implement and eliminates some of the structure and constraints inherent in previously described operant methods. This allows the procedure to be administered by a variety of therapeutic personnel and parents and in a variety of living situations.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1976

[A case of bilateral lesions in the temporal convexity: attempt to define symptoms].

The case is reported of a boy aged 15 who suffered a bilateral lesion of the temporal convexity after a brain traumatism; he died 5 years later and the symptoms during that period are described. The clinical picture is adequately described neither under the title of dementia, nor under that of aphasia. The concept of an abolition involving the systems of cultural mediation (linguistic, technical) is introduced. The status of echolalia and echo-praxia is discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Elimination of echolalic responding to questions through the training of a generalized verbal response.

Echolalia, the parroting of the speech of others, is a severe communication disorder frequently associated with childhood schizophrenia and mental retardation. Two echolalic children, one schizophrenic and one retarded, were treated in a multiple-baseline design across subjects. Each child was taught to make an appropriate, non-echolalic verbal response (i.e., "I don't know") to a small set of previously echoed questions. After such training, this response generalized across a broad set of untrained questions that had formerly been echoed. The results obtained were the same irrespective of the specific experimenter who presented the questions. Further, each child discriminated appropriately between those questions that had previously been echoed and those that had not. Followup probes showed that treatment gains were maintained one month later. The procedure is economical, in that it produces a rapid and widespread cessation of echolalic responding.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Modifying echolalic speech in preschool children: training and generalization.

An operant-conditioning technique was used to teach three handicapped children exhibiting echolalia to respond appropriately to a series of questions. The technique included punishment of echolalic responses and reinforcement of appropriate responses that were cued by a tape recording of the appropriate response. Frequencies of correct responses to the questions increased for each child following a within-subject multiple baseline design. Echolalic responding eliminated in response to trained questions. Generalization of training to several functional responses was found in addition to increased spontaneous use of a functional phrase. Generalization of trained responses across settings and stimuli was also suggested. A 12-month follow-up of two of the subjects revealed no increase in echolalic responding and moderate maintenance of the trained responses. The subjects also showed notable response generalization to untrained questions at the time of the follow-up probe.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1977

Tourette syndrome. The pediatric perspective.

I report the clinical details of Tourette syndrome in 15 children. The condition typically starts at age 6 years with eyeblinking, and the child soon develops other tics and abnormal vocalizations. Coprolalia and echolalia occure but are infrequent. The average delay in correct diagnosis in this series was four years. Treatment with haloperidol produces a good or excellent response in three quarters of the patients. Many of the children have a history of encephalopathic events, "soft signs" on neurologic examination, and problems in school. Personal and social adjustmen are generally good, however.

Child↗
PubMed1975

Cognitive processing and linguistic reference in autistic children.

Mutism or echolalia and failure to analyze sentences for their deep structures are characteristics of the language behavior of autistic children. The experimental literature indicates that cognitive processes which underlie the construction of a lexicon or the learning of ordering rules may be disturbed in these children. The inability to coordinate visual and aural stimulation inhibits lexical development, while difficulties in sequencing and use of inappropriate sequencing codes inhibits the growth of a productive grammar. It is suggested that remedial programs which include training in these processes may prove beneficial, and that substitute modes of information processing which the autistic child uses may be exploited to teach language forms.

Association Learning↗