Another Stereotype?

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KissOfMarmaladeSky
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25 Aug 2010, 2:37 pm

I'm not even sure hand-flapping is part of anything aside from maybe hypotonia or hyper-extended joints.

CockneyRebel
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25 Aug 2010, 2:49 pm

I've always questioned the hand flapping thing.

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Rynessa
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25 Aug 2010, 2:59 pm

Me, too. I have never seen an adult do it. On the other hand, almost all small children flap their hands when they get excited or even scared.

Willard
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25 Aug 2010, 3:11 pm

I do it with my keys when I'm out in public and stressing. click-click, click-click, click-click. Its not wild gesticulating, like a kid I knew in Junior High who was clearly a spectrumite, but its definitely a hand-flap, motivated by stress and anxiety, just like my rocking and swaying stims.

Marcia
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25 Aug 2010, 4:17 pm

My son is dxed AS and is very much a hand flapper. It is quite distinctive and is very different from typical "little children" flapping. He will be 9 at the end of this year and although his flapping hasn't reduced any, he is able to control it in certain situations and for short periods of time. I should add that this control is something that he himself chooses to do - I just let him flap.

I have observed a similar style of flapping in people I have seen out and about with carers, who seem to be more severely autistic and non-verbal.

@ the OP - what leads you to think it may be another stereotype?

lelia
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25 Aug 2010, 5:00 pm

My 33 year old daughter hand flaps when she is excited. I have met many adult hand flappers.

willaful
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25 Aug 2010, 8:27 pm

I've seen it in adults. My son seems to have grown out of it, though -- or perhaps is consciously controlling it, I don't know.

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angelbear
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25 Aug 2010, 9:12 pm

My son is 5 and is diagnosed PDD_NOS/possible AS. He flaps when excited. It sort of goes in phases where he does it more often and then it goes away and then comes back. He actually does have hypotonia.

KissOfMarmaladeSky
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29 Aug 2010, 2:08 pm

Marcia wrote:

The way they potray it in every Asperger's books I've read (about 5, I think), and they don't have any research to back it up. If this was all started by Rain Man (I've only seen a clip of it, yet it offended me), I would be ticked off. Oh...some people do it, but I, nor is the person with it in my sister's piano class, hand-flap. I shake my legs, though.

willaful
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29 Aug 2010, 4:00 pm

The one that really bugs me is the "no sense of humor" stereotype.

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buryuntime
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29 Aug 2010, 4:07 pm

KissOfMarmaladeSky wrote:

Marcia wrote:

Because handflapping is a classic stim, and everyone stims. I've seen normal teenage girls handflap before, but it didn't look particularly autistic if that makes any sense.

MomsEyeView
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29 Aug 2010, 6:06 pm

willaful wrote:

The one that really bugs me is the "no sense of humor" stereotype.

Willaful - I'm with you. My Aspie son has a GREAT sense of humor! He loves to tell jokes, act out funny scenarios and make people laugh (not always appropriately, but at least it socializing!) He also loves plays on words, but I worked with him (all my kids, actually) each night at the dinner table by introducing and then discussing figures of speech so that may have helped that area.

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spongy
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30 Aug 2010, 12:34 am

willaful wrote:

The one that really bugs me is the "no sense of humor" stereotype.

That one has been re-stated by Attwood as "not having a typical sense of humour" because apparently many of his patients were able to do jokes and so but they were related to their obsessions so he was unable to understand them until the patients explained it.

DW_a_mom
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30 Aug 2010, 12:58 am

Rynessa wrote:

Me, too. I have never seen an adult do it. On the other hand, almost all small children flap their hands when they get excited or even scared.

It's different in NT children than AS children.

When we had the autistic day class on our elementary school campus, I saw a lot of the stereotypical hand flapping. My high functioning AS son has never done it, despite his severe hypo-mobility, so I really don't think that is the connection.

I think the listing as a trait comes from simple observation of autistics. Not everyone on the spectrum has every trait, and if you're higher on the spectrum you are probably going to have even fewer of the obvious stims.

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Last edited by DW_a_mom on 30 Aug 2010, 1:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

DW_a_mom
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30 Aug 2010, 1:04 am

spongy wrote:

willaful wrote:

The one that really bugs me is the "no sense of humor" stereotype.

That makes sense.

The issue my AS son runs into is that he doesn't find the same things funny as his middle school peers, and a lot of it has to do with his complete lack of knowledge of pop culture and slang. Most jokes play heavily on that stuff, so he doesn't get the joke. I'm sure his peers see him as mostly missing the punch lines, or "not having a sense of humor."

But it doesn't mean he isn't funny. If you make a joke using a subtle play on sophisticated vocabulary (dictionary words), he'll get it every time.

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willaful
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30 Aug 2010, 1:27 am

spongy wrote:

willaful wrote:

The one that really bugs me is the "no sense of humor" stereotype.

Yeah, I don't always get my son's humor. Like he thinks the names on the buttons of the toaster are just *hilarious*. But he loves jokes, especially puns, and is often very funny. I've never known as Aspie in real life who didn't have a great sense of humor. And you can see it in the people who post here, too. But in media, they're always presented as humorless.

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