Reflexions about echolalic speech and speech therapy clinic from discussion of two cases of psychotic children

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss methodological and theoretical issues in the Speech Therapy Clinic concerning cases of echolalic utterances produced by children diagnosed as pervasive developmental disorders (psychotic). In language assessment to echolalic children, one could say that most studies attempt to make grammatical descriptions or establish some type of classification. However, the focus assumed in this article is quite different. Based on the analysis and discussion of clinical data, it proposes a different kind of approach: the one developed within the research program called Aquisição e Patologias da Linguagem (Language Acquisition and Pathologies Project), coordinated by Dra. Maria Francisca Lier-DeVitto, at LAEL/PUC-SP, Brazil. Based on the analysis put forward here, it is argued that language assessment can give the clinician some hints for his/her interpretation.