Question about verbal stimming

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I'm confused by a thread in which parents are referring to autistic kids screaming (for hours) as verbal stimming. It's hard to imagine that screaming isn't a sign of distress and something in me is curdling at the thought of labeling screaming as stimming because a child has autism and perhaps the screaming is regulating in certain circumstances, perhaps they are even right, much as the idea makes me feel ill with how dehumanizing it seems.

What is other people's experience and opinion, as to can screaming just be a verbal stim?

I suppose it's possible, but can see it only as a reaction to be extremely overstimulated. I am a hummer myself, so I would guess screaming would be to block an escalated level of overwhelment. Just how I would guess, anyway.

Screaming for hours is likely more stimming than distress, esp. in context of autism.

Argh, I made a longish post in response to this, and it has got lost.

More briefly - I used to know a boy called Andrew who was severely autistic and non-verbal. The first time I encountered him was in the local supermarket and I heard the screaming before I saw him. He screamed until his mother got him two bottles of squash, one of orange, one of blackcurrant, which he carried on his shoulders. He started screaming again when they had paid for the shopping, apart from the squash, and went home. It didn't work with squash they brought with them - the bottles had to be taken from the shelf while they were in the shop.

I got to know them fairly well as I became a member of the same church as them. He did scream from time to time, but the supermarket was the worst place. It could have been sensory overload - harsh lighting, noisy fridges and freezers, etc.

But, and this is the big difference between Andrew's situation and that of the child in the other thread. Andrew's mother was always with him. She encouraged him, cajoled him, knew him! He wasn't left simply to scream.

Edited to add: There was always a look of desperation about Andrew when he was screaming. With the bottles of squash on his shoulders he was calm, and relaxed, and seemed happy. My son has Asperger's and he stims extensively - and Andrew's screaming was of a different nature altogether - quite agonising.

I have always been high functioning but I did scream, rarely and not for hours, as a child when I became overwhelmed and confused, and the thought of this child being discussed in the parents forum screaming, alone, for hours reminds me of that overstimulated overwhelmed agitated confused aloneness of being a child screaming in a way that is almost physically painful. And very hard to get out of my head.

It is helpful to read others' perspectives, thank you.

I have read the words, "screaming with laughter", and I know that some people scream when they are overflowing with positive feelings.

Some people like and/or are soothed by the sensations of deafening music -- screaming as a vocal stim could be similar.

When I was in elementary school I remember screaming contests -- I don't know if they were proper contests where somebody was an agreed upon winner, just that it was a game with sound where the point seemed to be to scream as loudly as you could (and, in one horrible case, as shrilly as you could). Anyways, my point is that the screaming was just for fun -- no distress involved.

Without knowing the situation or hearing the screaming I have no idea about any particular person screaming for hours, but it's not hard for me to imagine screaming as stimming....in my mind screaming can be positive or negative, and could probably also be neutral.

If you are talking about the thread in the parents forum, that seems like stimming to me, not distress.
Screaming does not always equal distress.

I know you asked btbnnyr, not me, but I have seen it.

There is a home video of one of my cousins at 2 or 3 years old, happy as can be and screaming his head off (not just one or two shrieks either, he screams and screams). I don't know if that counts as "alone" because there were other people around, but he wasn't playing with anybody.

for me screaming isn't really a 'stim', it's just a way to get stressful feelings out without getting physical. but maybe that's a stim, i dunno.
i like to repeat foreign words to myself as a stim. right now my favorite one is "halom", from Hebrew.
i went into public for a walk once while i was really sad and angry and repeated "ctvrtsmrst", all consonants, to myself the entire time.
obviously i got strange looks.

I can't help but wonder how the poor kid doesn't eventually wind up with laryngitis...