What are these stims?

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Hi All

I am a new user and I am writing to you about my 3 year old son.
when he was younger he used to stim on wheels , looking through the corners of his eyes etc.

These all have subsided a lot but a new stim has emerged and I wanted to know your perspective on this.

He stims on past events for example if he sees a train or bus on the street he gets excited and he will sometimes tense his body and put hand in his mouth.

When he comes home after a walk these images of train and bus or wheel spinning remain intact in his brain and very frequently about 15 to 20 times a day he has these incidence of stims which look like seizures but are not seizures.

Even if he hears the word train or bus he will go in this zone. Similarly he will also stim if he sees a whale or dolphin swimming on tv.

I hope I have explained you what is going on with my son.
I have been to numerous doctor and have not received a concrete answer.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks in advance
Ashwin

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Parents' Discussion]

I'm not sure what thoughts you want? Is there some specific information you're looking for?

Sounds like he's hyperfocusing on his special interest, which doesn't strike me as that unusual if you've ruled out seizures. (Note: just a parent, not a doctor.)

has he been diagnosed yet? If not talk to a child psycologist about geting the tests done. As for the stims that look like seizures, video tape them and show them to his doctor and ask for his opinion. I'm not a doctor, child psycologist, or parent i'm just speaking from my own experince.

Could be a stim. Just saying the word or seeing it could make him start thinking/visualizing whatever it is about trains, cars, etc that he gravitates to.

I'm really curious if this has something to do with sounds. Trains and buses are generally really loud when they go by, and it could have been rather traumatic for your son and left a long-term marker in his head that's brought back when he thinks or hears about either of them. His zoning-out could be his way of coping with the sound or memory of the sound. Keep in mind tat most people on the spectrum have REALLY good memories, and sometimes it's really hard for us to filter-out traumatic events, even if the trauma was just loud noises.

The whale/dolphin thing could actually be the complete reverse of the train/bus. If he's seen whales and dolphins on TV and the footage was always really peaceful and pretty quiet, the reminder could send him to a happy zone, which may look the same ad the train/bus but be very very different.

It's a BAD idea to expose him to more loud noises if you're thinking that you should "get him used to it", it could cause more harm than good. At the same time, if passing trains and buses and trucks is something that'll happen on a normal basis, you should try to figure out if there's certain times of the day that it happens in specific, and make a sort of schedule out of it; maybe even come tell him that it's about to happen, like say, "3pm! loud coming!" - because you're not saying the actual word of what it is (so you won't initiate the stimming), but you're mixing a warning and a time so he can get used to it happening. LOTS of things seem easier to handle when we know they're going to happen and can prepare ourselves for it.

I have ruled out seizure for the simple fact that we can trigger this behavior by talking about trains/bus or by showing him pictures of these vehicles and we can also sense the uneasiness building up in him before he starts this behavior.
Sometimes I can distract him and I am not always successful.
The neurologist has seen the videos of his behavior and he thinks it is some sort of sensory overload.

My son craves to sit on a train / bus ride and I used to take him on these rides once a day, which I have of-course stopped now.

One interesting observation I have noticed that he like to see a chef making a cake and this also triggers the same behavior when he sees a round cake - my guess is he relates this to a wheel, btw this is just my theory.

He also gets scared on little things he sees on tv. somehow his brain is not perceiving these images correctly.
He does get scared when he sees whales but still insists on seeing the video again. I wish he could communicate more so I can help him overcome his fears.

Thanks you all for your inputs...

First of all he is excited by trains and buses which is very typical for younger autistic or asperger boys and even girls he is also hyper focusing on spinning.....does he spin at all? You said he turns his eyes to the side, my daughter did this when she was spinning. Its a vestibular sensory issue. I would give him as much train and bus rides as you can allow (dont understand why you would stop?). You should allow him to indulge in this and start using a timer which will help him to understand that he needs to learn to tone down his focus and will also inadvertently tone down his hyper focus. As for the vestibular issue, he needs something to spin on. There are many toys and or swings, if you can take him to the play ground you can put him on anything that spins around. We bought the hammock type swing for my kids from IKEA and put it up in the living room (very cheap btw) and my daughter could not get enough spinning. We would twist it all the way up and let her loose....a couple rounds of this and we found that she could concentrate better and would give more attention to her therapists. They knew when she needed to spin or to jump on her trampoline which is also helpful.

I also am no doctor either (Im just an aspie mom with two aspies and an autie) and you need an Occupational Therapist to assess him for vestibular problems and the best way to deal with them. My son has them as well but he is the opposite. He gets sick from spinning and never liked spinning. He likes to rock and twirl his hair so we would just gently swing him side to side in the swing.. My Maddy is the spinner and the one who loves the front loader washing machine. She used to sit in front of it like it was a TV when she was younger flapping away!
I understand you are worried about seizures but this sounds more like autisim happiness. You dont understand maybe that our emotions, especially anger and excitement is so strong that we can sometimes hardly contain ourselves! People stare at me sometimes when Im in the store and I see an autistic child so full of excitement that he or she is stimming like crazy and I am giggling and trying to keep myself from getting as excited. Its like seeing a puppy (I know you may not be taking this right) but nothing makes me more happy that seeing Autistic excitement!

Also you may be seeing fear but it could be excitement or just being in awe. Whales are huge and awesome and if he was scared he would not want to see it again!

I know my son is very excited by trains and bus and he loves to watch them on streets.
He also likes to play with trucks and trains and stim on wheels. But this play only last for 2 minutes and It is not repetitive.
After playing with his toy for 2 minutes he spaces out then he walks back and forth with his head down.
He looks like he is in lot of distress. I ask him what he is seeing or thinking and he says red truck, black bus etc.

Just this morning when he woke up, he was staring at the ceiling and said " come back train I am coming".
He was fine for the next 5 minutes but then he started to feel uneasy and started walking back and forth talking about trains.

At times it is trains or trucks or cakes or dolphins -- all of the things he likes.

Is this excitement or some sort of anxiety? I have asked lot of parents ans therapists and they have not seen this stim in other children.

It sounds like you're describing body tensing, which IS a stim. Does it look like he's doing palates when he does it?? lol My son has done this for years, and it's when he's very excited about something. It's a good kind of excited. My son also shoves his whole hand in his mouth. It started out with just chewing on the cuffs of his sleeves, but then it progressed to his thumb and now his entire hand. It IS a stim, and his OT says he craves oral sensory input. It drives me crazy because he's in school, and schools are swarming with germs.
My little guy also loves big trucks and noisy vehicles. His favorite are motorcycles. He just goes into hysterics when one goes by during our walks. I purposely take him for a walk along the main road so he can watch the traffic. I love to hear his laughter.

he used to put hand in his mouth when he was stimming now he makes sound as if something is stuck in his throat.
You are right that he may be needing some oral input as well. what do you do for oral input?

Sometimes out kids dont know how to express how they feel and they say things that can sound odd. My daughter was very upset this past Friday because it was vacation and all the other boys she walks with from school had been picked up. She does not do well at all with change! As soon as she came in I tried to be calm and happy and told her that she gets to go to therapy for three days this week and remind her of everything. She started crying that the boys were not there. I can not walk her anymore due to my last bad flare of my disease, I am better but I dont want to push it so we hired a Nanny who walks other kids. She had a meltdown and I said Im sorry baby I know you dont like it when things are different. She said "It hurts me" and continued to repeat this for about five minutes until I got her settled down with a drink and a snack.

It might be a symptom of OCD, which can be treated with meds, Prozac (fluoxetine), in particular. Here in the U.S., kids as young as 3.5 or 4 can get a prescription, and some kids (like my younger son) have absolutely amazing results with med therapy for this condition.

OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is a severe anxiety disorder which often requires medication for effective management.

A child with ASD will often (but not always) have a comorbid psychiatric condition or neurological condition.

You might want to consult the following page from my free website for links to more information:

http://www.freevideosforautistickids.com/Therapy.html

Has anyone mentioned "tics"?

Tics. There are two types of tics -- motor tics and vocal tics. These short-lasting sudden movements (motor tics) or uttered sounds (vocal tics) occur suddenly during what is otherwise normal behavior. Tics are often repetitive with numerous successive occurrences of the same action. For instance, someone with a tic might blink his eyes multiple times or twitch her nose repeatedly.

Motor tics can be classified as either simple or complex. Simple motor tics may include movements such as eye-blinking, nose-twitching, head-jerking, or shoulder-shrugging. Complex motor tics consist of a series of movements performed in the same order. For instance a person might reach out and touch something repeatedly or kick out with one leg and then the other.

Tics are often classified not as involuntary movements but as unvoluntary movements. This means that people are able to suppress the actions for a time. The suppression, though, results in discomfort that grows until it is relieved by performing the tic.

While people of all ages can experience tics, they are most prevalent in children. Experts say that around 25% of children experience tics. And tics are far more likely to affect boys than girls.

http://www.webmd.com/brain/tic-disorders-and_twitches

There are differences between tics, stereotypy (stimming), compulsions, mannerism et cetera

http://www.wemove.org/tics/tic.html

http://frogger11758.wordpress.com/2009/ ... ifference/

Eureka-C thanks for those great links, very informative. I think my NT son could be said to have tics. I had never put that label on his behavior before but it fits.

ash123, your son sounds like he is "in his own head" a lot. This is not uncommon among autistic kids. I am not sure if what you have described is "stimming" (do a search on that word on this forum and you'll get a good description from aspies here about what stimming really is) but it does sound like autistic behavior or perseveration. An obsessive interest is one of the main criteria for diagnosis.

We were just talking about oral input options on another thread. Our OT recommended gum but I wasn't ready to give my son gum at first because he was only 4 and I thought he would either swallow it or I would find it stuck to places I really didn't want it like the carpet or the couch cushions. Now that he is almost 6 and he has shown me that he can be responsible with it, we do use it. Other good options are drinking thick liquids through a straw and eating crunchy vegetables. Google "chewlery" and you will find various types of necklaces and braclets that are designed for kids to chew on safely. Surgical tubing is a good cheap alternative.