Ming (Agents of Speech) explains that many children on the autism spectrum may imitate the phrase “I want…” to obtain items or actions without a stable link between the word and its concept. Some requests (e.g., "I want ice cream") are understood, but others become ritualized imitations used to trigger the next step rather than expressing genuine desire.
A lot of children on the spectrum, if you say, oh, you talk first. I want whatever, they're so smart, they have like super eye contact that they're looking at how your mouth is moving. And they don't really know the meaning behind what they're requesting for. And there are some that they know very well, like I want ice cream, I want cookie. But this is like, I want to go out that they don't really care about. It becomes a routine and they think that it's I want to go out for everything. And it becomes more of a ritual they have to finish in order to do the next step. Which is besides the point. Right. Why is this happening? Is because there are no other language functions available. I want whatever is to imitate in order to get something. And this is what we call requesting or manding. But the problem is that their word, the link to the concept, is not very stable. And therefore what's happening here is that if the word to the concept isn't stable, all they're leaning towards is just imitation. So they're using imitation for requesting. They don't know the word meaning.
