Sign Language Echolalia in Deaf Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Deaf children with ASD sometimes echo signs, just as hearing children with ASD sometimes echo words, and TD deaf children and those with ASD do so at similar stages of linguistic development, when comprehension is relatively low. The sign language modality might provide a powerful new framework for analyzing the purpose and function of echolalia in deaf children with ASD.

Children Who Are Deaf/Hard of Hearing with Disabilities: Paths to Language and Literacy

“…Further, children who are DHH alone also do not exhibit the difficulties maintaining social relationships that are seen in children with ASD. Patterns of stereotyped movements and rigidity in schedules are also not characteristic of children who are DHH without ASD [40,96]. Finally, in addition, to language and communication differences noted in the language section below, Kellogg et al [89] found that children with ASD had delays in symbolic play not typically seen in children DHH without ASD and two of the three participating children in their study of children with DHH-ASD, lost skills over time.…”

“…However, it is also thought that the diagnosis of ASD is often overlooked in the population of students who are DHH [25,88] and diagnosis is complicated by the lack of standardized assessment instruments for ASD that are appropriate for the DHH population, difficulties in audiological assessment, overlapping characteristics of ASD and DHH, and diagnostic overshadowing [25,27,28,30,40,88]. The literature base in DHH-ASD is limited but includes identification and assessment [28,30,31,89], social interaction and behavior [90][91][92][93], speech development [13,32,41], sign language [94][95][96], AAC [97], family supports [98,99], and teacher perceptions [34,100]. A search of the research revealed no research specific to literature skills and DHH-ASD, therefore, what is included in the literacy section below is extrapolated from the literature on ASD.…”

“…The participating children in the studies were from families of Deaf signers and exposed to sign language from birth. Shield and colleagues conducted three studies looking at palm reversal, pronouns, and sign language echolalia in children who are DHH with ASD [96,104,105]. In the first study that examined palm reversal, Shield and Meier [105] found that the three participating children with DHH-ASD demonstrated errors across several sign parameters including location, handshape, movement, and palm orientation at a higher rate than would be expected in children who are DHH.…”

“…This finding is surprising giving that sign pronouns are often transparent and involve indexical point to self or others. The third study by Shield et al [106] examined sign language echolalia in children who are DHH-ASD [96]. Echolalia or repeating the utterances of others has been shown to occur in the majority of verbal hearing children with ASD in early childhood.…”

Signing with the Face: Emotional Expression in Narrative Production in Deaf Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…There have been very few studies investigating ASD in deafness (Quinto-Pozo et al 2011 ; Hansen and Scott 2018 ). Studies of communication skills in deaf children with ASD have identified characteristics of their communication equivalent to those found in hearing children with ASD (Scawin 2003 ; Shield and Meier 2012 ; Szymanski et al 2012 ; Shield et al 2015 , 2016 , 2017 ). For example, confusing self and other in both gesture and use of pronouns occurs in hearing children with ASD (Lee et al 1994 ).…”