Stimming

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That sounds like rubbish - I love the chapter on stims in "Autism for Dummies", it promotes tolerance and only advises curbing stims if they get disruptive or self-injurous.

It seems to me that researchers know next to nothing about the entire autistic spectrum. They have all kinds of beliefs ("facts") about it that aren't even true.

If they really wanted to learn something, they would stop trying to disect the children, and talk to the parents. Not about the "children" but about the "parent". How many parents are actually on the ASD and undiagnosed? This way, they would be getting first hand accounts in the pool of indivuals they do find, indeed, have an ASD! Not second hand accounts or observations.

However, I partly agree with this, I know with my son, he sometimes has subconsious stims, where he does things, like rock or shake a leg while he is listening. Once he started with a handful of pipecleaners at the beginning of a math review I was doing with him, and in an hour, not only listened to everything I said, but made the most beautiful mask you have seen!

Then again, sometimes he starts listening, and then stimming, and for some reason, he becomes more aware of the stim, then what he is listening too! When this happens, it does seem like the rocking or the drawing, or whatever he is doing, indeed DID distract him.

I think it has everything to do with are you stimming in the background or subconsious, and the active part of your mind is available to be used for concentration, or are you stimming in your fore consious? If you are doing the latter, it WILL distract you.

You can alternate between the two too. You can start out suconsiously doing it, and switch, so, to the outsider, it looks like the more you did the "movement" the less you payed attention! Basically, you got caught up in your "stim".

But just to make this more confusing, what does that mean? Does that mean you should not let yourself, or the Autistic Stim? Common sense would suggest that if it "distracts them". But again you would be wrong. Many autistics, (and actually some NTs too) NEED to stim to absorb information. It is like the engine that drives retention. I have heard with ADHD kids, some stop learning on meds because they stop the "stims". They don't stim, and they don't absorb info as well anymore! I know this happend to my son when he was younger. He was on meds, he appeared to be "concentrating" however after a year of meds, it became apparent that he stopped learning anything new after he stopped taking them! His learning remained static!

Ugh. It is all so so confusing!

I agree, I am just reading "The Siege" and every page to me screams "Hello? Mother with HFA/AS anyone?". I am not sure an NT mother would just know that sitting quietly in a closet next to her autistic daughter was the right approach. Also the stuff Kanner wrote about the mothers, and other authors did the same. Couldn't they see that this was the same behaviour they were so elaborately describing in those people's kids?!


Yes exactly, it's easy to get sucked in, and if it interferes with basic life skills then yes I do think it's OK to redirect stims or even try to curb them. Stims can be tricky though, because your brain LIKES them so much. So it's often not willing to make you fully aware of what you're doing, because that awareness might make you decide to "pull out of it" because intellectually, you know you're supposed to pay attention to things like traffic, teachers etc.

I've never heard that about ADD kids, that's interesting though.

Thanks for the link, it fits there

I didn't realise there are so many stims that peole have. I used to rock back and forth in bed to get to sleep up into my late teens. Then it was mainly bouncing my leg/foot/knee when I had to sit for any period of time, (still do this). I've I noticed flap my hands at work when I move from one task to another. And I've got the constant dialogue I have in my head with myself, and then repeating the same song on my CD.

1. I wave around a long belt or ribbon.

2. I flap my hands.

3. I rock back and forth when sitting.

4. I hum and giggle and make noises just to hear them.

5. I suck air through my teeth.

6. I pace.


-SpaceCase

I pick at my fingernails.
I twirl my hair.
I grind my teeth.
I rock back and forth.
I "vibrate" while sitting and laying down by bouncing my legs really fast.
When I am standing I bounce a lot.
I bite my lip.
I flap my hands sometimes.

*Smashing my knuckles together in a pattern, based around multiples of four. Sometimes a set can go on for half an hour.
*Clearing my throat by making funny squeaky growling noises constantly.
*Opening and closing safety pins again and again and again with my mouth.
*Shaking my left leg up and down loads (when sitting).
*Tensing and untensing the muscles in my arms and hands.
*Pinching my nose with both hands (So it looks like I'm praying. I try to resist this one, because people stare.)

I twirl my hair, pace, do that bouncy leg thing that lots of people do, chew on my hands (not enough to cause injury), pinch my bottom lip, rock back and forth, and lay on my side and rock right to left (when I am trying to sleep sometimes), and I twirl various wheels and spinners that may be on one of my nephew's toys if I happen to find one close by. I also really like to swing on swing-sets and porch swings.

What surprises me is how similar our stims are to each others'. I would have thought they would be more unique to the individual, but it seems many of us do the same things. Here are some of mine:

Verbal/Aural:
Drumming on desks and tables to hear the sound and the rhythm. Music in the head like coming out of me. Making odd mouth noises or sound effects at totally inappropriate times, including humming and whistling. Repeating odd phrases over and over again.

Motion/Facial:
I catch myself rocking back and forth slowly, and I stop. Striking odd poses and postures. People sometimes ask me why I'm making an odd face and I have no idea what they are talking about or what I just did. When I was a kid teachers would sometimes accuse me of rolling my eyes at them or making faces at them, but it was all unintentional.

Oral:
When I was a kid I used to chew penicls like a beaver until they were almost all the way through. And I would chew pens until ink exploded on my face. I chewed sweatshirt strings to shreds. I still chew things but not as bad.

And while I realize that many NT's smoke cigarettes, I think for me the smoking has now linked up with the AS as a stim.

???:
Picking at hairs or any small skin blemish, like if if have a dry scalp under my hair.
(I have a relative that picks her skin REALLY BAD. I wish I could help her to stop.)

I'm sure there are more.

Leg shaking, foot tapping, fingers tapping on surface or in the air, throat clearing/grunting, humming. I no longer twirl my hair because I don't have any hair. Problem solved! (Although today at church I couldn't stop rubbing/scratching my head.)

Yes. I rub the backs of my ears unconsciously when I'm in social situations. I don't realise I'm doing it at the time. Then later on I notice my ears are sore and bleeding.

Oh, and for those who chew nails/the skin around them etc that can be really painful.

I just ripped off a nail and it hurts like anything

Oh man I did that to your line before I even read it. Creepy creepers.

I dont know if this is a stim or as ppl around me call them ticks...... but is having ur thumb tap each one of ur other fingers on each hand in stressfull times a stim? I notice this gets worse when loads of ppl are around and my senses get muddled up other ppl say that its very distracting and sometimes annyoing.
Oh well HI everyone!! !! !