Echolalia (Noun)
Meaning 1
(psychiatry) mechanical and meaningless repetition of the words of another person (as in schizophrenia).
Classification
Nouns denoting acts or actions.
Hypernyms
Meaning 2
An infant's repetition of sounds uttered by others.
Classification
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents.
Examples
- The six-month-old infant exhibited echolalia, repeating the "mama" sound her mother had just made.
- During the play session, the nine-month-old infant displayed echolalia by mimicking the therapist's babbling sounds.
- Echolalia was a hallmark of the infant's language development, as she repeated words and phrases spoken by her caregivers.
- As the infant learned to vocalize, her echolalia became more complex, incorporating longer phrases and sentence structures.
- The researchers observed that the infant's use of echolalia gradually decreased as her ability to generate original language improved over time.