can someone explain stimming?
"Children seem calmer when they are sick and they seem to tolerate closeness and touch better. We have all sort of marveled at this."
Hardly able to exhibit behaviour, distruptive or otherwise, bed ridden with fever. 'Marvel at your sick child, complient while they heal.' :roll:
It was a helpful thing when my was younger, knowing that laying on the couch rather than using it as jungle-gym set was a sign he was becoming sick. But only as a signal to look closer at his health, when he was non-verbal, rather than thinking this was alleviating his ASC in any real way. Really, like Jenk, I see this as pretty common sense. Feel like crap = body slows down, you are more lethargic as your body does battle internally against the infection, you "coccoon".
Maybe there is something more to it, but it seems much more likely that this is about misunderstanding the root cause of the change in symptoms and what it means.
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Please be kind and patient with the tourist. He comes in peace and with good intentions.
I think a lot of people are so dismissive of it because they under-estimate the parents' familiarity with the child.
Parents are well aware of when their children are tired or ill without immuno-stimulation/cold/fever - and their behavioural dispositions don't fundamentally change at these times.
But the shift in mindset during a cold/fever is QUALITATIVELY different.
The study doesn't claim that ALL Autistic kids undergo this change.
Anyone who's ever had a fever will be aware of the kind of psychotropic changes that it can produce - alterations in perception and cognition.
Does not apply here!
Sure. But this sort of change happens in NT people too, to similar effect. They just have a different starting point. So it is perceived as more a "good" thing in the autistic. Although it has benefits for both NT and AS in that situation, the confusion is the root cause of the changes in behavior.
P.S. BTW I suspect this effect is why part of why there is this idea perception that "chelation is good". It beats the crap out of the kid's body with the chelation and while he's still down and recovering the autism is "better". The problem is that for lasting effect you have to constantly beat the crap out of the body. Not really a viable long term solution.
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Please be kind and patient with the tourist. He comes in peace and with good intentions.
I think it helps me relax and focus, similar to a low-dose/fast-acting/self-applied dose of ritalin.
My primary stims are:
-bouncing my leg(s) up and down using my calf muscle(s)
-twisting my thumb and index finger together
-grating my teeth rhythmically
-rocking
-biting nails, cuticles, knuckles, lips and or tongue
-licking my teeth
-scratching my chin or nose
-cracking my toes (good one to do in public)
-picking dead skin
-I also had verbal/auditory stims as a child.
Could smoking cigarettes be a stim? Like some people smoke cigarettes just to smoke them, but I personally always said my addiction is more psychological than chemical because I find comfort in the whole process...hand to mouth, breathe in breathe out. It's almost just as soothing with a non-lit cigarette to do all those things, but it's not the same as I love to feel the smoke in my lungs. I'm just curious.
Of course it'd be a very relaxed form of it judging from what I read on here, but it is a soothing repetitious behavior that I find stimulating.