Stimming Correlation

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I am curious whether anyone knows any statistics on the correlation between stimming and ASDs. Or if there are people who have this need to stim that don't have ASDs or are their Aspies, or Auties who do not need to stim. Does the need for stimming pretty much only occur in people who have an ASD?

It definitely occurs in NT toddlers. Have you ever watched a roomful of little kids? They'll flap their hands, run in circles, stay on the swing for hours, and they're neurologically normal. Even NT adults stim, in smaller ways; tapping their feet, playing with their hair, etc.

You just see a great deal more of it, and at a higher intensity, in autistic people.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone here who doesn't stim a great deal, though. I wonder if it tends to be less common among those who don't have a great deal of sensory integration trouble or dyspraxia; that's what it helps me with.

I googled but it was all about autism (I assume you googled too and just got tired after the 4th page, as did I).

So with no googled data I'll just go with life observation.

What I've observed is that stimming is normal for the vast majority of people. What seems to set autistic people apart is duration only. I know I know I know in the literature they make stimming sound like a thing apart. But when I actually watch my daughter or any of her AS schoolmates and compare them to myself and random people all around, the difference is duration only. NT people drum on tabletops, tap their toes, twirl things, make odd noises, rock back and forth and so on. But then stop after two or three repetitions. An autistic person apparently has the need to go beyond the two or three repetitions which catches peoples' eye and then gets labeled as diagnosticians as stimming.

Probably every single thing an AS person has ever done as a stim is also done by an NT person- but only for two or three repetitions.

So I think the need is in everyone but the need gets sated very quickly and easily for NTs but not for AS people. Why the need for a longer duration? If it's calming, I guess that means AS people are more prone to jangled nerves.

Usually this only happens I've noticed to people who play or have played an musical instrument. Or are just nervous.

Other than that most people I see sit still. Me? not quite, specially in the car alone.

I'd say that any number that is given (should you find anything) is inherently going to be problematic. Why? Because some of the physical manifestations of autism (stimming, the "aspie" stare, etc.) are more obvious to professionals doing the diagnosing and can't really be explained by a whole lot else. My hunch (and perhaps it is only a hunch) is that those who are "borderline autistic" with more obvious physical traits are more likely to be diagnosed positive than someone who shows subtle or no physical traits.

That is to say, the physical traits are perceived as being fairly telltale in nature, and that there are probably broader allowances with other areas of the criteria made if the physical ones are there. You see this here on WP all the time. "So and so definitely has Aspie eyes so they must be an Aspie." Not saying that professionals have the same degree of bias, but I bet that the bias is still there to some extent.

So it poses an interesting question for those of us who are subclinical. We have autistically structured thought processes but don't seem to be particularly disabled by them. Are we subclinical in large part because we don't have pronounced physical traits, or are our lack of physical traits due to us being subclinical? Do more pronounced physical traits generally correlate to more severe AS/autism?

There is also the problem of the definition of "stimming". When defined as an ASD behavior, then the result is circular: all stims are a part of ASDs. But if stimming is defined more broadly, then compulsive behaviors such as hair-pulling (trichotillomania) may fit.

The books on AS and ASDs I've read all mention stimming, but none gives specific numbers, probably for the reasons mentioned above in this thread.

I do wonder if some stims are particular to ASDs. Is multiplying or squaring numbers, or other number games, in your head (a favorite of mine) found in the NT population? I suspect so. It's a matter of degree, as several people said above, not merely the act itself.

I have some NT friends who are college math college Math Profs, that I am sure, though I have never asked, they participate in this kind of thing or even more complicated stuff. I'm not one who loves to do this. I would much rather manipulate chord progressions, and imagine the sound of dissonances and feel their resolutions and that kind of thing, in my head. Yeah that would qualify for stimming I guess.

Posters here have talked as if stimming is for relieving stress. I do it for the stimulation. I am very very stimulation seeking. But I suppose not being able to stim would be a source of stress for me.

I found this list of stims on a Autistic site:
# Visual stimming: staring at lights, repetitive blinking, moving fingers in front of the eyes, rolling eyeballs
I don't do any of those things, but I like to look at distant objects sometimes and then look at them crosseyed to see if I can see two objects as on top of each other. Don't know if that would be stimming.

# Auditory stimming: tapping ears, snapping fingers, making vocal sounds
I don't do this anymore. I used to drive my parents crazy from constantly clicking my tongue when I was a kid.

# Tactile stimming: rubbing the skin with one's hands or with another object, scratching
I can't remember when I didn't do this. I rub my fingers against rough cuticles. I rub callouses into odd places on my hands. When I was a kid I loved wearing wool against my bare skin. That one was a source of a huge recharge for me.

# Vestibular stimming: rocking front to back, rocking side-to-side
I do a lot of this, but I only rock if I'm in a rocking chair, or an office chair that leans back. But it is hard to resist swiveling back and forth in a swivel chair.

# Taste stimming: placing body parts or objects in one's mouth, licking objects
I don't think I do this, or anymore. I used to twist my lips, and stretch them out of shape, but I have managed finally to end that one.

# Smell stimming: smelling objects, sniffing people
Many scents are very stimulating for me. Some of the strong scents of scented candles recharge my batteries big time. I don't recall ever going around sniffing people though. I used to sniff my own hands fingers, etc.

This thing didn't mention verbal stimming. I admit I do that some. Certain words just feel good to pronounce, but I don't keep a list of them in my head to pull out and use when needed.

I do a lot of stimming. Much more than two or three repetitions. I do it almost constantly. But I also multitask, and I think in wholes, and I can return to a task very easily after being interrupted, and one of my favorite visual stims is eye contact.

I don't seem to do much overt stimming....the theory is that my mother would never have allowed it, she would have classed it as "fidgeting" and assumed it to be completely frivolous and inappropriate. But I make a lot of repetitive movements inside my mouth, as if the whole concept had to go "underground." I also wiggle my toes, which you wouldn't see because my shoes hide the toes. I also went through a nail-biting stage, which I couldn't control, but that seemed to get better all by itself eventually. At school I used to shake one leg quite violently while I was talking, without knowing I was doing it, but the phase only lasted a few months because I began to notice it and didn't want to look silly.

It's on my diagnostic report that I play music as a socially acceptable way of making repetitive movements. It doesn't feel like that to me, but I guess it doesn't have to. I know that I can spend ages repeating the same musical phrase "to get it right," without ever setting out to do that. I haven't noticed it making me feel better, though it probably makes me a better musician.

I've been told that I do hand-flapping, though I haven't noticed that myself yet.

Funny you mentioned that. I've been through all of this too, growing up. I got it from my parents then, and I get it now from my spouse and my daughter. Fidgeting they call it too. And yes I too wiggle my toes in my shoes because it doesn't show, and I do things behind my back, and in the car when the window is open, I used to put my hand out the window so moving it didn't show. But inspite of their and my best efforts I have been unable to stop this. Once, when I was in high school, my Mom was repromanding me for rubbing callouses on my hands, and in frustration she said, "Do we need to take you to a psychologist to get you to stop?" and I said, "Yes, please do. I cannot stop this myself!". That wasn't the response she was expecting. She never brought it up again after that, but neither did I go to a psychologist.

I have no diagnosis to reference this on, and I don't play an instrument, and I wouldn't think of playing an instrument as a source of stimming other than the sound it creates being a source of stimulation.

Funny, but not Bunny topic
/\_/\
O . o


I like kitty.

I remember my mother similarly threatening me with "the doctor" - I just thought, "that sounds like a good idea."

I think this is because they're learning so they do it to help take in all that info. This might be the problem.. maybe autistics don't take in the info so they sort of just keep "trying". Maybe that's part of it, anyway.


Same here, I just do it because it feels good. But since reading about it I've tried doing little ones when I'm upset and it really seems to help because it's distracting enough that I can stay in control until the source of the upsetness is gone/resolved.

OK, some figures from Aspie-quiz. The most common stims have a little above 0.5 in correlation with Aspie score. The "Aspie stare" is correlated 0.57 with Aspie score. So, yes, stimming can be found among NTs, but it is much less common.

I do not believe it is only the frequency that differs. I think it is also the stims themselves. NTs have their own kind of stimming, like "doing the wave", courtship dances and stuff, but these are no like the ASD kind of stimming.

I disagree. I think the stims are exactly the same, they just are of such shorter duration. "Doing the wave" and courtship dances are not stims. They are non-verbal communication. NTs do stims that absolutely are reported here as things Aspies have done as stims, just only for very short times: tapping on surfaces, chewing on objects (usually pencils), hair tugs, pacing, rocking, flapping. If you do any of those things just a couple times, it doesn't "count" to the doctors but it is exactly the same movement as an Aspie (or autie!) is doing 100 times in a row, just for not as long.

Tabloid journalists have even started tagging celebrity stims. Celebrities get photographed so much now that when they do stims, it shows up in repeat photos and the tabloiders will cluster the photos together to show it is a stim. (But they don't call it a stim. They call it a nervous habit.) They discovered through the near-constant surveillance that paparazzi do that Robert Pattinson (star of Twilight movies) pulls his hair and bangs his tongue against his teeth. So I really think the difference is purely duration. When an NT does it twice in a row, it's called a nervous habit. When an Aspie/Autie does it 100 times in a row it's called a stim. But the action itself is the same.

Yes, and stims ARE non-verbal communication. All the stims are closely related to other (indisputable) non-verbal communication traits like unusual facial expressions, staring at people, odd posture or gait, only looking at people one likes, clenching fist when angry, blushing. Not only that, but some stims are not random actions, rather they are related to certain feelings which I showed several years ago.

Stereotypies can occur in other developmental and psychiatric conditions; for example, schizophrenia and mental retardation.