It's interesting to see, I'm diagnosed myself and the basic idea of mimicry is a strong trait throughout. I basically relearned emotional expressions and gestures in my late childhood from emotional cue cards much like you'd learn a language.
So, it does make sense that the copying of the tone and verbalisation are to some degree linked. I still sometimes catch myself repeating phrases or noises without anyone around much like the kid did even after he strolled off.
A friend of mine is married to a woman and they used a sperm donor to conceive their son. Their son is basically physically a tiny clone of my friend - they have the same eyes, the same hair, the same skin tone, but in mannerisms, since he's a gestalt language learner and my friend's wife stays at home with him a lot, he has the same tone of voice as her, the same soft foreign accent, and in this way he comes off as a perfect blend of his two moms. I always forget he's not biologically related to both of them.
Kids on the spectrum mimicking tone and sentence structure is a very real thing. I’ve taught early childhood for a long time, and I remember one kid who had solid emerging language skills, with one catch. A lot of the stuff she was picking up was from Peppa pig, so half of what she said was in a very noticeable British accent. Speech had to work on pairing words with the same meaning that sounded different, for example her mom being called “Mama” while she also learned the British sounding “Mummy.” I’ll never forget those meetings and everyone’s “well this is a new one, the fuck do we do” as we were addressing it. Kids are fascinating man.
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u/sky_aura_storm 16d ago edited 14d ago
You could hear how it was her same tone of voice too🥰 this filled me with happiness today!