A random walk model to qualify echolalias

Abstract

Some neurodevelopmental disorders such as Tourette syndrome, Asperger syndrome, autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), persistent vocal tic disorder, transient vocal tic disorder, psychotic disorder due to another medical condition, catatonia associated with another mental disorder, etc; may represent speech fluency problems characterized by the presence of pathological repetition of speech, prolongation of consonants or vowels, broken words, symptoms of communicative disorders called echolalia. Observing this context, this work presents a model of random walks to qualify echolalia using the representation of information entropy. The model presents results consistent with the different types of echolalia, namely, interactive, non-interactive, delayed and non-delayed, including combinations of these echolalia that characterize comorbidities in some patients, such as non-delayed and non-interactive echolalia, non-delayed and interactive echolalia, delayed and non-interactive echolalia, and delayed and interactive echolalia. Each of these types of echolalia was quantified using random walks, measuring the information entropy for each one of the cases which can range from mild, moderate to severe.