My son had alot of issues with that. We are running the Son-Rise program and he had no functional language but alot of echolalia like this. Now he does a little of this occasionally rather than very often. I'm suggesting a total change in how you view this behavior. If you don't agree, I totally understand but it changed everything for my son. I came to see the bad behaviors as rather a window to his world. They gave me a method to make a human connection to him and communicate 100% love and acceptance. In the context of being trained to do the therapy I joined him in his behaviors and rather than try to stamp them out, view them as a beautiful part of his development. After 9 months, he can make complete sentences to communicate and gives natural eye contact. The behaviors are minnimized but not because I found a way to "stop" him. Often, children know they are really irritating people with this and they do it more and more because they are getting a reaction. It's not easy, but I have learned how to give him super excited positive reactions for what I want him to do and then not show a reaction for the rest. This is more easily done in a distraction reduced environement that helps a child with Autism to focus. Children with Autism have a really keen sense for how others are feeling and they love to feel they are controlling their world in some way by irritating people and they tend to carry alot of anxiety about people because they don't know how to form a human connection yet. That all starts with the most basic behavior - eye contact - which again you can't force or make them give eye contact, they have to be positively motivated to do that on their own. You want to teach him to control his world in a sense by inspiring positivity in others and doing more positive things. It's just my 2 cents or maybe a quarter and maybe you don't think there is anything to these ideas but all I'm saying is - this IS working for us! I will keep checking back for additional ideas too. They do have sensory integration CDs but they are really for children who have issues with processing what they hear. If you think that is a challenge you can search on Yahoo or Google the terms sensory integration CDs and come up with several very good organizations who produce them and alot of people have had good results with that. In fact, I would like to add it to our therapy program and see if it would help him make faster progress.

We all do things because we have some sort of reward for them, whether internal or external. For example, we get a job to get a paycheck. We eat chocolate because it is an awesome taste stim as well as a mood enhancer for most people. We sit in a glider or rocker because nearly EVERYONE likes at least some vestibular stim for relaxation and entertainment (therefore amusement park rides).

First, you need to find out what your child is getting from the behavior you want to change. Is it soothing (to the kiddo... not to you... grin)? Does it raise or lower a sensory input? And so on.

Once you have some idea of what the behavior is doing for your child, then it is much simpler to find behaviors that YOU find acceptable, that ALSO help your child access the stimulation, avoidance, or reward that the undesired behavior is providing.

Keep in mind that in autism, most soothing behaviors are about physical/physiological comfort and/or mental/intellectual mood stimulation, rather than social interaction.

@A MyAutismTeam Member - If he's enjoying the sound of his voice by repeating words over and over... so do a lot of people. It's called karaoke; some are great, some are terrible. It isn't that he's doing something wrong, it's where and how frequently, and that his tone is not something pleasing to those in earshot. If he was singing in a way you found pleasing, he could go quite a while and you just wouldn't turn on the radio.

Find out... is it his own vocal cord vibration, the auditory sound, or both? How can he get that stimulation that he will like, that is also in a way that doesn't make the people around him want to strangle him?

I agree with Sonrisemom that getting auditory integration CDs would be a good step, as possibly would having a time and a place where he can rock it out and you wear earplugs. Or, if he is up to developing his singing voice, perhaps taking lessons, singing back songs from the radio, etc. ...

I also agree with Sonrisemom that no matter how irritated you get, do NOT give him feedback on things you don't like, and focus on the stuff you do. It is hard because the things you're not liking are so loud... but autistics do like social interaction - withdrawal is a consequence of repeated failure due to sensory overload as well as others' reactions to the efforts - and as even the most severely affected get older they will explore social interaction repeatedly, both the positive and the negative. However, having a 20-somthing year old acting like a small child is much LOUDER, BIGGER, and overwhelming to all around.

How DO you deal with a kid who is say... 4 years old and normally developing... who has found his voice and is stomping around the house yelling, and doing so louder every time he gets in trouble for it?

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A MyAutis...

what are the behaviors you are having?

Recently,my 27 year old son keeps repeating words at a high volume as a self stimulation and it has become very annoying to us and those that he works with at his vocational program. WE are at a loss as to how to replace this behavior with a more appropriate one. Any suggestions?