Delayed 5 year old repeating everything

syracuse1

Hi there first post because I need help. This may seem like a minor thing but my five year old Lydia literally repeats every word and movement of her 7 year old sister. This has been going on for years now and nobody knows what to do. She does it at school also with her peers. Noone wants to play with her and they get angry and annoyed. It breaks my heart. She receives special education services but noone has any solutions or insight. I’m so scared this will continue forever. What can we do? Does anyone have any experience with this? BethAnn

00kim00

Has she had a psychological eval? Does she have any diagnosis, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder? Why is she getting special education services? Are her delays in cognition, social-emotional, language, motor? What professionals are working with her (special educator, OT, speech therapist, psychologist, behavioral specialist, etc.?)

syracuse1

She has communication delays primarily and receives special education services for that. She has not been diagnosed with autism yet but evaluations are ongoing. This appears to be an anomaly that doesn’t fit into any category or diagnosis. School psychologist and teachers have no explanation or solutions. It just continues all the time.

00kim00

Well, it's hard to tell without knowing her and having lots more information. The psych eval should provide some good information. Detailed observations can also provide more information. If your educational team hasn't thought of it yet, I'd suggest a Functional Behavior Assessment. FBAs are most often used for "challenging behaviors" (misbehaving or acting up, in non-educator terms), but the premise should hold. One thing to know is that all behavior has a function, so if you can find out the function of this behavior (why is she doing it? What does she get from it?) you can work on meeting those needs in a more acceptable way. Figure out the why and that will guide you in what to do. I can't tell you why your daughter does this, but some possible reasons can be:

• Practicing/trying to figure out acceptable social skills (if X is doing it, that means it's the right thing for a kid to do, so I'll try it too!)
• Practicing language (imitation is how we all learn to talk at first, she may still be there)
• A psychological issue, such as OCD or anxiety that compels her to do something to feel at peace
• A sensory need she is trying to meet
• Global or cognitive delay (there's a time in our development, typically as babies, where imitation of sounds and movements is good and expected; think of when your baby claps when they watch you clap, or smiles at your smile, or waves bye-bye in response to your wave. She may cognitively be at that point of development)
• Seeking attention - a bid to interact
• To annoy someone/get a reaction she finds interesting 

A psych eval and FBA should give you a good idea of what's going on. If not, you may need to seek a second opinion. If your evaluations are only through school so far, maybe seek a psychologist through your health insurance. A developmental pediatrician may be another good professional to get a referral to.

banonymous

Does anyone know how to post our own post rather than posting replies?