Latency of Echoic Verbal Responses by Three-Year-Old Children

The echoic responses of 59 three-year-old children were tape recorded during the routine administration of a verbal comprehension test. They were unsolicited echoes of the examiner’s statements rather than requested imitations as in previous latency studies of verbal responses. The response latency distribution was skewed positively with the mean and median latencies occurring at 0.88 and 0.78 sees, respectively. Comparisons between average latency values at three levels of stimulus conceptual complexity did not result in significant differences. Average response latency values were found also not to be different for verbal stimuli intending a motor response or verbal stimuli intending a verbal response. The results tended to support descriptions of echolalia as a relatively simple verbal response though further research is indicated. It was concluded also that the echoic response latency is independent of the linguistic parameters of the eliciting stimulus.