YES. my oldest (almost 6yo) always used echolalia. I saw it as such a gift that I did my best to help him expand from immediate to delayed, and back and forth, building up vocabulary and language skills. It can change, it can even manifest into independent communication, he could one day just chat you up without repeating anything you've ever heard before.. he could take everything he ever heard and develop his understanding of the english language, just like someone learning English as a second language.

It was a long time before I heard WHY questions regularly...and it is still not very often. Does your son ask questions he knows the answer to? Mine does ALL the time. I am refusing to answer anymore. I've explained it's not "conversational". It's just a quiz. He's trying to start conversations, but doesn't understand how to do it. I'm numb from the neck up by the nonsense language and tantrums over little stuff. But he still needs me to be a good role model. So I must remain PRESENT. I must lead the conversation, and teach him how to answer, respond, engage others at the same time. Crazy stuff.

im not sure the age of your child however even now at 13 my son will ask why about how come a certain person is doing this or that.
for him i know it is that he wants to understand how people are feeling. and another part of it is that he has to know the reason for everything.

I hear you. When it's not black and white, it can be so difficult to know for sure what you're dealing with. I think the very best thing you can do is find good professionals (pediatrician, for example) who listen to your concerns and take them seriously enough to sort out what's typical and what merits a second look.

I think that is the problem with Jack though....everything he does is "so close" to a neurotypical child but he does it maybe at the wrong times, or over and over (asking why for literally everything you tell him) or maybe he just does things a touch different than a NT child. I think that's us what has made te diagnosis process so didficult. His actions are so mild in the autism perspective yet we still face so so so many challenges of our own here at home.