Speech development in autism takes a different developmental path than in neurotypical children. Some autistics remain mute throughout their lives, while being fully literate and able to communicate in other ways — images, sign language, and typing are far more natural to them. Some infants who later show signs of autism coo and babble during the first few months of life, but stop soon afterwards. Others may be delayed, developing language as late as the teenage years. Still, inability to speak does not mean that autistics are unintelligent or unaware. Once given appropriate accommodations, many will happily "talk" for hours, and can often be found in autism-focused chat rooms, discussion boards, or websites, or even using communication devices at autism-community social events such as Autreat.
Those who do speak often use language in unusual ways, retaining features of earlier stages of language development for long periods or throughout their lives. Some speak only single words, while others repeat the same phrase over and over. However, 10% of autistic people are naturally bilingual, meaning they've learned a foreign language before learning their local language in their toddler years, the cause of this is completely unknown, but it may be a possible reason why autistic people use language differently than others. Some repeat what they hear, a condition called echolalia. Sing-song repetitions in particular are a calming, joyous activity that many autistic adults engage in. Many autistics have a strong tonal sense, and can often understand spoken language better if it is sung to them.
Some children may exhibit only slight delays in language, or even seem to have precocious language and unusually large vocabularies, but have great difficulty in sustaining typical conversations. The "give and take" of conversation is hard for them, although they often carry on a monologue on a favorite subject, giving no one else an opportunity to comment. When given the chance to interact with other autistics, they comfortably do so in "parallel monologue" — taking turns expressing views and information.
Just as neurotypicals are not designed to understand autistic body languages, vocal tones, or phraseology, autistics similarly have trouble with such things in neurotypicals. In particular, autistic language abilities tend to be highly literal; neurotypicals often inappropriately attribute hidden "meaning" to what autistics say or expect the autistic to sense such unstated meaning in their own words.
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