Ming from Agents of Speech explains why echolalia and autism don't automatically mean gestalt language processing. Echolalia serves many functions: typical language learning, coping, and more. Some autistic kids use gestalt-like phrases without being true gestalt processors. Interventions shouldn't assume one approach fits everyone.
Another problem that we see is that autism and echolalia doesn't mean a child is a gestalt learner. There are many communicative functions, whether if it's a child on the spectrum or not. Echolalia in itself is a way to learn language for a lot of typical developing children, and echolalia also serves as a lot of coping mechanisms for autistic children. That doesn't mean they are gestalt language processing. They might have some characteristics of which and we can't assume that all autistic children and all people who fit the criteria, we should only use these set of methods with them. Some children do appear as if they are communicating through gestalts, through phrases that are stuck. But at the same time, do you understand the reason why it was like that in the first place, and why the language wasn't flexible? Was it because they didn't have enough vocab from the very beginning.
