text: The use of echolalia in task response to facilitate generalization is an area that holds much promise. Research in this area is certainly needed. Marjorie H. Charlop performed a series of task experiments with autistic children. The results suggest that perhaps in certain tasks (i.e., receptive labeling), echolalia should not be eliminated, but taken advantage of as it may facilitate acquisition and generalization for autistic children.
  Tourette syndrome
  Echolalia and echopraxia are distinguishing tics of Tourette syndrome (TS); the echolalic repetitions of individuals with TS are mainly echoes from within their own "tic repertoire". Evidence points to a healthy mirror neuron system (MNS) but "inadequate imitation-control mechanism, which make them vulnerable to interferences".
  Autism
  A symptom of some autistic children is the struggle to produce spontaneous speech. Studies have shown that in some cases echolalia is used as a coping mechanism allowing an autistic person to contribute to a conversation when unable to produce spontaneous speech. Studies in the 1980s showed that there may be communicative intent with delayed echolalia, "depending on the context in which it occurs"; this research on autistic children "raised questions related to behavior modification programs that defended the revocation or replacement of immediate echolalia".
  Uta Frith, Prizant and others have interpreted echolalia as evidence of "gestalt" processing in autistic children, including in the acquisition of language. However, a 1990 study on the acquisition of grammar by Tager-Flusberg and Calkins found that echolalia did not facilitate grammatical development in autistic children.