“Spelling it Out”: The Design, Delivery, and Placement of Delayed Echolalic Utterances by a Child with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Quantitative research into the phenomenon of echolalia in the talk of children with autistic spectrum disorders has been extensive but has tended to focus on the child in isolation, or has only considered other parties’ immediately prior turns. Drawing on conversation analytic (CA) work, we examine one boy’s production of three cases of possibly echolalic utterances. Our analysis focuses on wider interactional events, in particular, nonvocal events. Firstly, we examine what it is about these cases which make them echolalic: They apparently constitute announcements of how words are spelled which, in the activity, appear to be irrelevant. Nevertheless, we show how they are connected to locally prior talk. The utterances are demarcated prosodically from prior talk by slower delivery at increasing volume. Secondly, we show how each production of these utterances is tied to a specific interactional event: namely other parties taking control of a mobile robot which the child has been handling.