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SilverSolace
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16 Mar 2012, 3:13 pm

I read that echolalia/echopraxia can be common in foms of autism,so I had some questions about anyone who experiences or has observed these conditions.
Can you give some examples of echolalia or echopraxia in your life? Are there different degrees of the conditions or is it pretty much the same for everyone? Also, could you look at these examples from my life and tell me if they are examples of echolalia and echopraxia?

When people talk, I feel like I am repeating what they say in my throat (but not actually saying anything) ,and if I am alone I will sometimes repeat sounds or accents I have heard from other people or characters, and sometimes when I'm talking I will accidentally start using an accent or voice tone that I heard before but didn't really mean to use. But I don't compulsively repeat things from commercials or favorite shows/characters (at least not anymore). Would that be considered echolalia?

And if I am walking with someone, I start to match their pace and step so I look like I am exactly copying their movement as they walk. If that person who I am walking with turns, or moves their head then I move my head or turn in the same direction. It is pretty much involuntary, because I rarely ever realise that I am doing it, and even when I do it is difficult to stop mirroring their actions. It really only happens with someone I am aligned in the same direction with. Think of how a baby dolphin copies/follows its mother, and that's what it looks like when I am walking with someone if I can't make myself stop copying them. Would that be considered echopraxia?



btbnnyr
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16 Mar 2012, 3:30 pm

I have a lot of echolalia, and how it works for me is that I directly repeat what I heard several times in a row. I usually echo what someone said to me or what someone said to someone else in my hearing or what someone said on TV. I usually echo only a couple of words, at most a phrase, never a multi-phrase sentence. It's uncontrollable, and it just comes out. I don't hear it in my mind before I say it with my mouth. I just say it with my mouth right after hearing it. This happens in front of people in public. It confuses others, because they think that I'm talking to them or copying them on purpose, like if I echo something that a stranger said to another stranger in the aisle at the grocery store. I used to echo what students said to the teacher in class.

There is also delayed echolalia, which is when you echo something that you heard earlier, not right after you hear it. I have that too, and I do that when I am alone, saying several times the thing that I heard earlier. I usually say these things more times when I am alone, because there are no responses from other people to stop me. This may be similar to what you are doing when you are alone, but with me, it is the eggsac words and accents and all other qualities of the speech sounds that I echo, and just a few words, never anything prolonged.

I don't know anything about echopraxia. I don't think that I do it.



Nim
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16 Mar 2012, 3:36 pm

Your example of walking next to someone and copying their walk is common amongst most people. I have a hard time matching the pace of others usually no matter the situation. Your repeated speech is also quite common.