speech concern

My son was diagnosed with verbal apraxia at the age of 2. He is currently 39 months old. We needed to change speech therapists for insurance reasons and he has been seeing his new therapist for almost 5 months. She does not believe that he has apraxia. He also saw a pediatric neurologist at age two who told us to give him some time. My concern is the way he echos the speech of others and his memory recall (memorizing books and lines from movies, ability to recite the alphabet backwards). I have asked the therapist if she thinks he's autistic but she says he is too social and has excellent eye contact. He has reached all other development milestones and there is really nothing else unusual about his behaviors. What is your opinion- can echolalia and that kind of memorization occur in a "normal" speech delay. Thank you.
PJG

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

These behaviors bear watching, though if your son exhibits no other behaviral oddities or abnormalities, it is unlikely you are witnessing manifestations of conditions along the Pervasive Developmental Disorder spectrum. Does the therapist view your son's communication as meaningful? How does the therapist regard your son's acquisition of developmentally-appropriate speech and language? It is possible to have a developmental problem in the area of language, at least at your son's age, and to exhbit no other developmental problems. If a communication disorder is not remedied, of course, it can eventually contribute to problems in development of social and interpersonal skills.