Have you ever noticed your child repeating entire lines from their favorite TV show or movie, sometimes in moments that don’t seem to fit? While it might seem puzzling at first, this behavior is actually a common way that some children learn to communicate.
My name is Jessica Abawag, and I’m a speech-language pathologist and the owner of Fluens Children’s Therapy. We have locations in Tacoma, Washington, and Columbia, Tennessee. Our clinic provides speech therapy services for kids 18 months to 18 years. And today, we’re going to talk about why your child might repeat phrases from television.
Parents Often Wonder Why Their Child Repeats Entire Phrases from TV
Sometimes we have parents come in and say, “My child’s not really talking a whole lot, but they have this favorite phrase they say over and over again. And if they’re watching TV or a movie, they’ll always rewind that movie to listen to that phrase over and over again, and they repeat it and use it throughout the day.”
That is what we call echo, and that means repeating phrases that a child hears from another source, whether it’s TV, a movie, music, another person. And a lot of times parents don’t really understand the context of why the child is saying that phrase at that specific time.
For instance, say the child loves the movie Toy Story, and they’re constantly saying, “To infinity and beyond.” They may be using it at various times throughout the day, but it’s really hard for other people to understand why they’re saying that because it doesn’t seem to make sense given the context of either the conversation or the situation that they’re in.
Repeating Phrases Is a Sign of Gestalt Language Processing
If your child is repeating phrases from TV or other sources in a way that doesn’t seem to make sense, it may be a sign that your child is what we call a Gestalt language learner. That means that your child may be learning language in whole phrases. This would be the opposite of an analytic language learner who learns individual words and learns to put those together to make phrases.
Neither of these two types of language learners are better than the other. One does not learn language faster than the other. It’s just different paths to learning language. And in fact, there is a point in language development where those paths merge.
Children Who Repeat Phrases This Way Are Trying to Communicate Something to You
One thing that we as speech therapists can do is to help families better understand the function of why a child may be using a certain phrase. Then we can build off those phrases to learn new phrases, and then teach children to eventually start generating their own phrases.
When a child is primarily using Gestalt language, that is not necessarily their own original ideas or thoughts. They are using it because it may be highly animated or highly energetic, or from a show they might like or from a person that they spend a lot of time with. And so they might be latching onto that phrase and using it in a specific way.
For example, if your child is always saying, “To infinity and beyond,” that could be the way they try to get your attention so you’ll play with them. But they’re not just saying, “Can you play with me?” It takes a lot of observation in an evaluation or a therapy session, a lot of talking with families to help figure out why a child might be using a certain phrase, and then taking that phrase and using it to expand their language.
Speech Therapy Can Help Children Build a More Functional Language System
Let’s take a scenario where a child is constantly using a phrase like, “Come on guys, let’s play.” And it might mean “let’s play,” but it also might mean, “I want to go somewhere.” It also might mean, “I need to go to the bathroom.” It could mean a lot of different things, but in therapy, your child’s speech therapist can help them expand that into a more functional language system. We might model by saying:
- “Come on guys, let’s go to bed.”
- “Come on guys, let’s go in the car.”
- “Come on guys, let’s go to the bathroom.”
You can see that we’re keeping most of the phrase that they’re already used to using, and we’re just changing the last part of it so that they can start to latch on again. They’ve got this whole phrase that they’ve already learned, and they’re used to using it. We want to adjust it or change it slightly so that they’re hearing similar models, and it’s not too far of a stretch from teaching them something brand new.
So that’s just an example of something that we can often do with Gestalt language learners to help them, one, validate the phrases that they’re already using and help families to figure out why kids are using that phrase. And then two, using those phrases as a building block, as a foundation to build off of that, to start to learn new phrases, and then eventually to begin for the child to begin to use their own original thought.
Reach Out to Fluens Children’s Therapy for An Assessment
If this sounds like your child and you’ve been getting frustrated or confused as to why they’re repeating phrases from television or movies, give us a call. We’d be happy to work with you to see how we can help your child and give you some extra support in this area.