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In a rush? Here’s the quick run-down.
In recent years, David and I have bonded over our shared interest in neurodivergent and disability-informed practices in the Early Years. We were frustrated that most early childhood documents only describe typically developing children.
This led us to explore new ideas and theories that offer a fresh understanding of developmental diversity, specifically around speech and language development. We first learned about Gestalt Language Processing (GLP) from a number of American Speech Pathologists on social media, especially about how echolalia is a valid and meaningful form of communication. We’ll give you a few suggestions of people to check out at the end so keep reading!
We both shared experiences where we had been told that echolalia had little meaning, and should be ignored. We considered the impact of this on the echolalic children we had both cared for and educated and felt frustrated that we didn't have access to GLP and more inclusive theories earlier.
Echolalia is an unexpected treasure hunt… it is full of echoing, referencing, scripting, riffing and rifting, storing and combining and recombining, patterning, quoting, punning, swinging from hyperlexic memory to synesthetic connection, words are my tangible playground.
Just Stimming, 2023
Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT) often uses a medical and deficit model to address neurodevelopmental and language differences. This approach means much of the support given to children focuses on "fixing" perceived delays to help kids develop like their ‘typically’ developing peers.
However, in both the early years sector and in the SaLT field, this approach is changing. That’s why we want to provide insight into GLP outside of a clinical setting to raise awareness that echolalia counts and is not a dysfunction in child development.
You can pretty much guarantee that most Early Years educators have heard at least one child communicating via echolalia.
Echolalia is defined as:
“The repetition of words, phrases, songs or other more elaborate dialogues uttered by another person which may be immediate or delayed.”
(International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision; Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Ed).
Probably the most obvious example of echolalia might include a child at pick-up time responding to their parent’s prompt: “Say goodbye Cleo!” with a “Say goodbye Cleo!” of their own. They also might interject bits from their favourite TV shows, songs or phrases they have heard from adults; often in a way that does not seem to make sense in the context of the moment. Others might seem to babble in a sing-songy way, or you might notice they adopt a particular accent.
While we might not always understand why a child is repeating a favourite phrase from Peppa Pig when they put on their jackets, we can often notice the distinct inflection or tone of voice that comes with echolalia.
We often have mixed feelings when kids communicate in "unusual" ways. Some of us might find it cute and familiar, while others might get frustrated by the lack of back-and-forth conversation that usually develops early on.
Educators might feel both uncertain and charmed by echolalic children in their settings. The common reaction is often to wonder, “How do I fix this? How can I best connect with and support them?”
But, if we are being honest, we might often wonder, “How do I get them to communicate normally?”
Based on previous research and studies, there is a growing movement within SaLT that is helping us to unpick why children communicate in this way and how we can best support them.
The research behind Gestalt Language Processing (GLP) shines a light on what is actually going on with our echolalic children, but it’s important to note that this is still a pretty new area of research that mainstream Speech and Language Therapy have somewhat neglected.
It turns out that most autistic children - and some non-autistic children as well - pick up language in a different way that includes a number of stages. Most commonly what we see are “gestalts”, meaning “whole.”
Children who are Gestalt Language Processors (GLPs) pick up and use language in “whole” chunks or scripts. It is their repeated use of these gestalts that then gets labelled as echolalia. They may use this in immediate ways - for example, repeating straight away - or delayed echolalia, in which their gestalts are used across space and time.
Marge Blanc, a speech therapist in the US is widely credited with implementing this research, often to great success.
Now we have an understanding of GLP, let's go over Analytic Language Development (ALD) a more 'typical' way children learn language.
A child developing language in an analytic way starts by understanding single words. Then, they use that word in different situations and later combine it with other words to make their own phrases.
Almost all of us are taught that children pick up language on a word-by-word basis. It can be tempting to see this as not only the “normal” way of learning to speak but maybe even the only way.
Spoiler alert: it is not!
If most children (what these speech therapists describe as ‘Analytic Language Processors’) have a language journey that looks something like this:
Dog -> Dog barking -> I hear a dog barking
Young GLPs might start their language journey by saying “What a nice dog!” every time they see a dog, as they heard a family member exclaim this one day.
There is a growing field of research that shows that Gestalt Language Processors are really able to “get to the same place” as “typical” or Analytic Language Processors, they just have a different path to follow.
Unfortunately, most of us educators are still taught or advised to try to force these children onto the path we are more used to, or that is more widely ‘accepted’. It is not uncommon for Early Years educators to be told to ignore echolalia, to add a word to a child’s phrase, or dull down our own communication with them as if they had the receptive understanding of a younger child.
Often, this means we educators focus too much on "functional speech" or use the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) in a way that's too controlling and inconvenient. For example, only fulfilling a child's request when they give us a picture (imagine if adults did this to each other!).
With PECS, kids learn to trade pictures for what they want. For instance, if they want a toy, they give a picture of the toy to someone, and then they get the toy. The aim of PECS is to help kids start communicating on their own.
“Lunch now, then play.”
“Thirsty?” asking a child if they want a drink.
“If you want to play with the car, show me the car visual. Where is the car? Can you give me the car visual?”
In short - much of our strategy advice for GLPs is like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Both of us have experienced disappointment when a child has not made progress as a result of our mismatched approaches. Thankfully, we are having more conversations with other Early Years educators who want, and need, access to approaches that are more aligned with linguistic diversity.
In fact, it is typically older GLP children who get most “stuck” in their speech as they have racked up more time with our “traditional,” well-meaning but greatly mismatched, approaches. They might have a toolbox of functional phrases but in the words of Marge Blanc :
“We have failed to consider that the functional phrases we have taught might actually interfere with [their] potential to develop language competence.”
(Natural Language Acquisition on the Autism Spectrum, Marge Blanc. Page 8 published in 2012)
Gestalt Language Processing is not a disorder, nor is it a diagnosis. It does not need to be fixed or cured - it simply needs to be understood.
Again, GLPs can, and do, absolutely “get to the same place” as Analytic Language Processors but only if speech therapists, educators and other adults are willing to un-learn many things we have been taught or assumed about all children’s language development. It is simply a different way of acquiring language and should not become another term that is used to pathologise people who communicate differently.
We hope that in this article, we have shed some light on GLP and cleared up some of the misconceptions. Now let's get into some more practical tips you can put in place at your setting.
This article was co-written by David Cahn and Kerry Murphy. We have backgrounds in early childhood education and identify as neurodivergent. We are keen to broaden understanding of GLP across different contexts, and we also recognise that this must be done through an intersectional lens that recognises speech, language and communication development as influenced by a range of environmental factors and experiences.
Please note: here at Famly we love sharing creative activities for you to try with the children at your setting, but you know them best. Take the time to consider adaptions you might need to make so these activities are accessible and developmentally appropriate for the children you work with. Just as you ordinarily would, conduct risk assessments for your children and your setting before undertaking new activities, and ensure you and your staff are following your own health and safety guidelines.
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