"Stimming"--good or bad?

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Another way that I stim which tends to be a somewhat more acceptable approach is playing stimulating music to myself via headphones.

I typically flap my hands, pace, toe-walk, rock, sway my legs while sitting, and my most unique of all, I go into a room (preferably a lockable one) put on my music close my eyes and just let my body move with my thoughts. It's incredibly relaxing and focusing for me as all my thoughts are concentrated. I've recorded myself doing it though and I must say I move very strangely while doing it. Though it's also quite taxing it's my form of exercise. So I stay in shape because of my stims! Yay!

I like to go into my room and play with a soft T-shirt as I imagine and pretend usually football, sometimes also tennis or basketball or action movies or drama movies with cool scenes. And sometimes I vocalize as I do this. In fact, I like for the house to be empty so I can let myself go and vocalize if I want to.

I agree with Dr. H, my leg rocking was just slightly strange in Europe (I never felt autistic there) thus i initially didn't interfere with my son's tapping of long objects. However, our psych said that this stim comes from my son's frustration with his poor language and body control. It was a loop thing, he started to stim because he didn't know how to do things (drawing and such) or express himself and than since he was stimming instead of doing, he was falling even more behind. We started to engage him constantly and now he has less need for stim.

My partner's daughter began stimming when she was about two years old. We never thought much of it at first. She just carried around small toys or shoes and dangled them in front of her face. While she does this it is almost impossible to get her attention and she seems unaffected by her environment. By the time she was three, the stimming became almost constant and if we took one item away, she promptly appeared with another shoe, book, toy to dangle. Curious to see how she would behave without access to stim objects, we packed them all away. She didn't cry or make a fuss. She actually walked around the house and LOOKED at things. Touching things. She came up and engaged with both of us rather than wandering around the house in her own little world. There are typical situations when stimming is almost guarunteed to occur. When guests come over, when she has done something naughty and when she needs to do something she doesn't like. eg getting dressed or undressed. I am convinced that the stimming stops her from learning valuable lessons; not only about her environment but about self-control. Many adults feel uncomfortable in social situations and we smoke, drink, take drugs, bite our nails, play with our hair, rub our arms or just hide behind our sunglasses. Just because these behaviors serve a purpose does not mean they are healthy or developmentally helpful.
A final note, we put the stimming objects back out and the little one went right back to her old behaviors. During the absence of stimming she had finally learned a couple of words, the most prominent being "Drink" when she was thirsty. She'd been saying drink for three days. Two days of stimming and "Drink" was gone.
The speechy says to let her stim. The OT says to let her stim.........I think stop the stimming.


-Raaj-

Sometimes I need to remind myself to stim so I'm not as stressed out. Other times it can be hard to control. It feels unnatural to just suppress them too.

I hand flap but primarily just move my fingers rapidly. I can tell my facial expression is fixed during and I am interested in taping myself to see how strange I must look. I have learned to do it alone, but I also have adjusted ways of concealing it when I can't break away. I have never totaled it up but I estimate that I do this anywhere from 1-2 hours a day and maybe more. While I am stimming I do something that might be comparable to a daydream but it is much more to me. I design things in my mind in a way and it is in sort of a movie form. It is hard to explain. It is also very comforting.

Almosy forgot to answer the OPs question... Its a good thing!

What the heck is wrong with some people! (directed at no one in particular)

If the stimming behavior does not interfere with someone else's space and is not injurous than why would some try to attempt to stop this.

I have read in other places how some use techniques to try to stop this behavior--I think that it what the controversy with aba was(?). I am rocking back and forth while moving my feet in a certain way while writing this. It amazes me that someone would want to extinguish some of this behavior. The hand-flapping thing, yeah I did that as a kid when I was alone.
Everybody, including some NTs stim so why all of the controversy. It sounds to me like some in society need to be a little more tolerant!

Stimming can be good. It helps calm me down and keep my mind in the right place. My stims aren't obtrusive - they're small, repetitive motions I do to relax me. They're as small as me moving my finger in a button hole on my jacket or flicking my fingers together. Others could be seen as slightly odd - my favorite stim, especially when I"m thinking heavily, is to suck and bite the joint where my left pointer finger meets my hand. It leaves small bite marks in the skin, but those fade away after a few minutes. Other times I've stimmed on another person. My significant other has been okay with me stimming on his toes - he actually finds it amusing when I do.

If a stim is harmful or extremely disruptive - like banging your head against something hard, or running around a classroom in circles, I think it needs to be redirected. Not stopped and told to never stim again, but redirected into a different stim which doesn't disrupt so much or isn't potentially harmful. Giving a kid who has a bad stim a better one, like a small toy to play with or a pencil to tap, is good.

I stim and fidget a lot--when I think too hard or get emotionally excited, I start leaping around the room (skipping) and hand-hand flapping. I did this earlier today in the supermarket unintentionally until my mom told me to stop. I also have various mouth stims and I wiggle my fingers and bob my legs up and down. When I'm listening to certain songs, I unconsciously start tapping my face with my fingers. In fifth grade, my leg-bobbing stim distracted the kid next to me and I couldn't find another way to stim while focusing in my work because the sound of pencils against paper caused a lot of sensory frustration...

When I'm in public, especially when I'm anxious, I unconsciously tap my fingers with my thumbs on both hands. I also drum my toes in my shoes, and if I'm sitting I clench and unclench various muscles in my legs. When I'm home by myself I tend to pace and lightly tap my fist against my hip, or wiggle my fingers and hands. Sometimes when I listen to music by myself I get lost in the visual imagery of the songs and sort of direct little mini animated music videos in my mind while pacing back and forth and tapping my fingers. If I had all the time in the world I'd love to turn some of my favorite songs into stop motion animated videos.

I also tend to fold and unfold pieces of paper, and when I was younger I would disassemble and reassemble my pens and mechanical pencils in class, not sure if this counts as stimming or not.

I definitely think that pacing helps me write. I tend to sit and write until I get stuck, then I just automatically get up and pace and tap my fingers while my brain sorts out what I want to write next. Once an idea comes to me I stop pacing and sit back down to write it as quickly as possible before it goes away. I can see how someone who wasn't in my head might think that the pacing was getting in the way of writing, but for me it is an essential part of the process. I do my best and most creative thinking while pacing. I don't think I would have made it through high school if I hadn't been able to pace and fidget when doing my homework. I'm glad my parents usually just let me do my own thing.