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My 3 years and 3 months old son has speech delay. He repeats the question and then answers (mainly choice questions). At age 3, if I asked him any question ('this or that'), he simply repeated ('this or that'), but now he answers ('this or that this'). Now he started to speak with little repetition. He answers his name, age without repetition. Is this normal for his age?

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    What has the pediatrician had to say about this?
    – anongoodnurse
    Mar 27, 2019 at 3:54
  • Met nearly three pediatrician.Only one pediatrician told me that it is Echolalia and it might be a symptom of autism.Other two pediatrician told that he is completely normal and he is not having any attention related problem.Avoid mobiles speak more him and take him out..
    – Nilah
    Mar 28, 2019 at 8:43
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    I think it may be normal, since he does actually answer the question (mostly importantly, he can recognize questions and knows that right thing to do is to answer them). If you have any concern, it would not hurt to have him checked out by a speech therapist or your local early childhood services.
    – Meg
    Apr 1, 2019 at 13:21

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That depends on what you mean by the word “normal.”

If you mean, “Is it common?” then, no, I cannot recall any three year old I’ve spoken with who does that.

If you are asking if it is worrisome, again I would say, no. Hopefully your child has all sorts of interesting and wonderful idiosyncrasies that make him the adorable person he is. At this age, I can see no negatives if he likes to repeat questions back before answering them.

If you ask, but what about if he does this when he has to take a test when he is older? Won’t it slow him down? I would answer, worry about that when he is older. He may grow out of it. He may learn to cope with it.

As a point of data, when someone asks me a question when I am in the middle of something particularly absorbing – a coding problem, or a really good book – I sometimes repeat the question out loud as a way to tear my attention away from what I’m doing and focus on the person talking to me.

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