"What'd you say? Why did you say that?"

[nayma]

hi. you know how some little things just seem to escalate to the point where they finally gain notice. well, dd (3, ASD) sometimes says, "what?", after i say things, but i think her peers do, too. lately i feel like she's been saying either, "what'd you say?" or "why did you say that?", all day long. i doubt it's a hearing issue, as she has auditory sensitivity issues, and can hear the tiniest sounds waaaay off in the distance. it seems like an auditory processing issue, i guess. for those with kids with auditory processing problems, does this sound plausible to you? also, sorry for the dumb question, but how do you approach auditory processing stuff - OT, ST?? she sees an OT weekly, and though she's a super nice person, i'm really not seeing any progress or great ideas - especially for the auditory sensitivity... she's been sick this week, and it seems especially pronounced right now, but maybe i'm just so sleep deprived that i'm more sensitive - lol.
thanks, mamas .

[beachbaby]

I'll be reading with interest...my DD (4 yo with SPD...no ASD dx yet, but I wouldn't be surprised) does this all. the. time. I'm just starting to supspect auditory processing issues, too.

She's always been highly over-sensitive to sound--extremely light sleeper even with white noise, notices every sound (constantly asking 'what was that noise?'), covers her ears and screams when people talk too loud. At times I've wondered if the 'what did you say?' is a verbal stim (don't know much about stims, so maybe this is totally off-base) or a form of echolalia (again, this could totally be off base...I haven't researched this much, because, frankly, it just seemed like one of those quirks we just have to learn to cope with. Although as she gets older I'm wondering more and more about auditory processing issues and, like you, how to address them.)

We've just started therapuetic listening to address the sound sensitivity--but it's only been a week and I'm having trouble getting DD to wear the headphones at home, so I have little to report on it's effectivenss at this point.

[askew]

My 3yr old NT DS does this all day long too. I think a lot of it is the age. I say something, and his answer is "what did you say" sometimes two or three times. I finally started asking him back, "what did I say?" Then he will often stop and tell me what I said.

[2boyzmama]

I agree that a lot of it is probably age and attention span. BUT, remember that there is a difference between HEARING and UNDERSTANDING. So he may still have hearing loss. If it is at only specific frequencies, then he may be hearing sounds around him, but have a specific loss that makes particular verbal sounds hard to distinguish. For example, a little girl I know with hearing loss (aided to 25 dB or so, which is almost normal)...I recently said to her "where were you?" she responded with "good." She thought I said HOW are you.

So getting a good hearing test done (a full audiogram, not just a screen at the ped's) might be good to do. It's quick, easy, painless, and can easily rule out a hearing problem.

[mrsfru]

My 4.5 yr old son does this. He may have Asperger's, and he does have SPD/SDI (including sound sensitivity), and definitely aural processing issues. His hearing itself is perfect. The evaluator mentioned that he exhibits some "echolalia" BUT I have worked w/people w/it before, and I disagree. DS repeats to give himself time to think through and process what we've said...and then answers later (sometimes 30 seconds, sometimes a few minutes). He needs extra time to process spoken instructions. My friend's dd (same age) also asks "what?" and the like on occasion, but she can repeat back what you did say and is just "testing" us to see if we are really going to push her to comply. LOL

Don't know yet what the treatment is and specialists don't actually "test" for aural processing disorders until around age 6 (according to the experts ds has seen), probably b/c it is somewhat normal for 3 and 4 yr olds to struggle a little in this area anyways.

hths

mrsfru

[Pepper44]

My 3.5 year old DD is going through a phase like this. She constantly says, "What?" or "Why?" She doesn't have any disorders that I know of, I think it's a normal preschooler phase!

[imalego]

Originally Posted by askew

My 3yr old NT DS does this all day long too. I think a lot of it is the age. I say something, and his answer is "what did you say" sometimes two or three times. I finally started asking him back, "what did I say?" Then he will often stop and tell me what I said.

This. I also get "why" asked to me about 95 thousand times a day.

[sunshadow]

My daughter is 2.5 and she says "What did you say" and "Why did you say that" all the time lately. I would think it was an age thing because she hears just fine, great language skills. She needs to hear to be able to talk so well. My dd often says it when she doesn't "want" to hear what I said, I said something that doesn't make sense to her right away, or I just said something she thinks is silly.

[LynnS6]

What does she do when you say back to her "What did I just say?" or "Did I say that elephants are coming for dinner?"

If it's an auditory processing issue, she may not be able to reliably tell you what you said. If it's the annoying (but typical) question phase, she'll be able to tell you most of the time.

FWIW, ds has SPD and is hypersensitive to sound. He doesn't have auditory processing issues that meet the criteria for disorder, but he does have a hard time filtering and/or focusing in more noisy environments. So, he does ask 'what' or 'what did you say?' more often than other kids.

He also had the world's longest 'why' stage, and that's just plain old temperament. He started asking persistent 'why' when he was just under 3 and continued to well over 7. (He still asks why now, but it's manageable.) There were days when I was ready to tear my hair out. "Mom, what's that?" "That's the river." "Why?"

It got to the point where I'd automatically answer 'why' even when he'd said "oh" or "OK". It led to some amazingly circular discussions.

Me: "After we're done, we need to go to the grocery store."
Ds: "OK."
Me: "Because we need milk, apples and meat."
Ds: "I didn't ask why!"
Me: "Oh sorry, I thought you did."
Ds: "Why?"

[nayma]

thanks for all your replies!! i totally understand about the "why" thing - we have/had that, too. but this is really different. and honestly, it's not a button pushing thing. i don't think she even gets social stuff enough right now to know how to push my buttons. she does is unknowingly for sure, though . and i know what you mean about the stalling for time thing. i think that is there sometimes, but this seems like something that's genuinely not getting in all the way, or correctly. sometimes i know it's that she doesn't get what i'm saying, in terms of meaning - especially slang, etc. but lately it's been like, "i'm going to wash the dishes."
dd- what did you say?
me- (slowly and clearly) i'm going to wash the dishes.
dd- why did you say that?
and, yes, lynn, i do ask her sometimes to repeat what i just said to her, and often times she can't do it. she used to answer inappropriately at times, but i just chalked it up to age.
me- what do you want to eat?
dd- good. okay.
me- no, what do you want to eat.
dd- okay, mom. yes, mom.
and it's not a lack of words. her vocabulary is huge, and she talks all.day.long.

[mrsfru]

nayma,

It became clear to me that ds1 does not always understand and that it is a processing issue, when I observed others (ie grandparents esp) getting very frustrated w/ds when they would give him instructions or ask him to do something and he did not do it/didn't do it right away/asked why or what and then he would have a tantrum or become very sad. When our second son started being able to follow directions that our first son *still* can't follow at times, it became even clearer (ds2 is *only 17 mos* and ds1 is 4.5!). We can tell ds2 to "go over there" or "around that" and point in the general direction for things like "to change your diaper" or "to get a bath" and he will go--ds1 will ask "What Mom? What did you say?" or "Why?"...and it will take him a few extra seconds or some demo from us to "get it".

Sound familiar?

(-:

mrsfru

[sbgrace]

My typically developing child has excellent auditory memory and processing. He did this all the time at that age. To the extent that I almost had his hearing tested. I still don't know why because I know he heard and understood me...but it passed.

However, the answering the question w/ something not really answering is much more like my other child who does have issues. I've always thought it was inattention to the other person but he may well have auditory processing stuff going on.

[mamarhu]

I did this as a kid. I even remember feeling like it gave me a couple extra seconds to answer. In my family, we have a serious hereditary hearing disease, so you can bet my Mom, who is very hard of hearing, rushed me off for testing!
For what it's worth, I have no real sensory issues. I think it can be just a habit.

[NightOwlwithowlet]

My son did this for a few years from about 3.5 to about 6 years old. He started doing when his receptive language began to improve and stopped when his receptive language normalized. He will still ask me to "Say it another way" or ask what words mean to clarify what I said when he is having trouble processing information.

BUT, sometimes he does it when he doesn't want to comply with a request. It's all in the body language. When he doesn't understand, he leans forward and looks intently at you and repeats what you said under his breath. If he doesn't want to do something, he leans back, looks at you, then his eyes glance away and he grins a bit. I get a kick out of seeing how far he'll try and take it before I shut him down. His music teacher, martial arts instructors, his dad, his sitter, my best friend and I all have his number. He, sometimes, get other adults running in circles by playing it up.