stimming question | Autism PDD
Zach does a whole body movement( like head butting the air),He also has Alot of verbal stim's, head thumping, I think that's more Sensory, and picking up the cars he plays with to constantly rub the wheels with his fingers ,smelling things ,Lining things up? is this a stim or behaviour,I dont know.
Linda
Allergra...my son does the sideward glancing mainly when people are trying to talk to him it almost appears as if he is rolling his eyes in the back of his head. Kind of freaks me out. My son also runs up and down what ever he can find. Driveways are his favorite if it has an incline. Fans are big you will see his eyes follow the fan. Carter also loves anything that plays music. Everything has to be monitored or he becomes completely engaged and he lets nothing else in. When I take the toys away if I let it go to long he throws tantrums. We have noticed tippy toeing an some mild hand flapping when he gets excited about a door being closed.
His stimms are starting to settle down since we started floor time.
[QUOTE=Carters Mommy]
My son also runs up and down what ever he can find. riveways are his favorite if it has an incline. Fans are big you will see his eyes follow the fan. Carter also loves anything that plays music.
[/QUOTE]
That describes Mr. B's favorite stims to a "T". He'll put all the shoes, boots, dining chairs, and now it's diapers, that he can find in a geometric pattern or straight line, and then run up and down them with is eyes on a fixed point. Outside or in public, it's anything that has a straight top line he can use as a guide - chair railings on walls, the banister on steps, the vegetable bins at the market.
He also will "compress" faces...come up to someone he's familiar with, and take their face between his hands...then he'll tense his muscles and grit his teeth so hard, he shakes, but not the person's face (thank goodness!).
My son stims are rocking his head side to side like saying no (like woodsmen used to do) and rocking it left to right (shoulder to shoulder) too. Hell usually do one or the other or he sometimes alternate every few seconds, but rarely.
He also has to rub my elbow sometimes softly and other times viciously like hes trying to get something out of it (relief I guess)
sucking his two middle fingers constantly, sometimes refusing to use that hand at time. He has indentions that look callused from his teeth from sucking ALL day long.
I didnt know this was a stim but ive been reading it everywhere but he does sort of like a grimace for no reason where he scrunches his nose up and mouth drawn tight and his eyes kind of look up to the right and eyebrows furrowed one higher than the other. Thats the best I can describe it anyway! He dosnt do that all day long tho.
He lines his cars and diff toys up. When he was alot younger it was lining up whatever toys he got together but I noticed now its more orderly like lining up all his cars sometimes by color or type, or all the books, all the same dinosaurs. Also he likes putting things that are the same in clusters or families he calls them.
Mason's is rocking--he rocks anytime he is sitting. He also needs to be on his rocking horse or swinging.
He pinches...not so much to hurt himself or others, but just needs to squeeze the skin between his fingers.
He has also started this thing recently where he needs to gag himself with his toys and if I take away the toys he uses his fingers.
R will look at breaks in patterns - like a seam on your dress and lean forward and say woooooooo to it
My son will also rock himself to sleep. He has done that since he was in the crib.
He FLAPS his arms like crazy when excited. If he is sitting down (floor or chair) He will flap/kick his feet while he is flapping his hands too. ~~ Don't get too close~~
He Chews on things all the time!
My son does every kind of stimming and often. The specialists he have seen said he stims more than any other child they have ever seen!Here's an explanation from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimming
Stimming is a jargon term for a particular form of stereotypy, a repetitive body movement that self-stimulates one or more senses in a regulated manner. It is shorthand for self-stimulation, and a stereotypy is referred to as stimming under the hypothesis that it has a function related to sensory input.[1] Stereotypy is one of the symptoms listed by the DSM IV for autism and is observed in about 10% of non-autistic young children. Many autistics do not exhibit stereotypy. Common forms of stereotypy among people with autism include hand flapping, body spinning or rocking, lining up or spinning toys or other objects, echolalia, perseveration, and repeating rote phrases.[2]
There are many theories about the function of stimming, and the reasons for its increased incidence in autistic people. For hyposensitive people, it may provide needed nervous system arousal, releasing beta-endorphins. For hypersensitive people, it may provide a "norming" effect, allowing the person to control a specific part of their sensorium, and is thus a soothing behavior.[3]
Sometimes self-injury is viewed as a form of stimming.[citation needed] Usually, self-injury is very different from stimming, but people with decreased pain sensitivity may injure themselves because they like the feel of it, similar to other stims.[citation needed] For example, they might like the way their hand feels in the mouth when they bite themselves, while not feeling the pain of the bite. Or they might like pressure on their forehead and bang their head without it hurting, even if they are risking brain damage.
My son stimms constantly and in every way...visually, flapping, verbally (noises), strange walking, jumping, staring at his hands at different angles, staring at lights, opening and shutting his eyes, lining things up, opening and closing doors...to name a few![QUOTE=autumn]My son does every kind of stimming and often. The specialists he have seen said he stims more than any other child they have ever seen![/QUOTE]
That is how my son is, lol.
He is mod-mildly autistic, but he stims big time, and all of them. Hand flapping, spinning, repeats just about everything that is said to him (even if he can't say it on his own), jumping up and down, lining things up, squinting, etc... It seems like he is always stimming.
One I haven't read about, but that he does often, is taking two things, like two books or DVD cases, holds them in front of his face with the ends touching, and will move them back and forth slowly in opposite direction, and making them ends touch again. he does that alot.
Good post BTW. I love reading about other children like Daniel :)
He will draw the same smily face over and over again, on walls, on paper, even on carpet (don't know how he managed that one, lol).
High-pitched noises plus movement (when overstimulated).
Snuggling and rubbing his face against me (when overwhelmed or tired).
Touching people's faces (chins starting at age 1, then ears, and occasionally the soft skin under the chin, especially on old ladies. Doesn't do it so much anymore).
Posing his Bionicle action figures to millimeter accuracy (this one is also fading).
He has other sensory-seeking behaviors that are socially acceptable, like bike-riding, swinging, playing in the sandbox, and playing with water.
Here's a good article on stims with a chart of stims under the various senses.
http://www.tsbvi.edu/Outreach/seehear/archive/mannerism.html (the page was down just now but it usually works).
When my youngest was small, he had a vocal stim. Basicly, he would chirp like a bird. He then moved on to looking at objects very closely. He would hold them up close to his eyes and study every little detail by turning the object. This past year in Kindergarten, he started hand clapping. He doesn't stim much anymore, but when he does its hand clapping. To a casual observer, he just looks really happy about something.Lately it's back to spinning and looking out the sides of her eyes. I attribute that to high yeast levels and need to get her on diflucan soon. She doesn't do it every day when her yeast is under control.
Another is flailing out her arms, espcially when she is excited. I don't know if that is a stim, though, or nuerological (sp) damage. Haven't been able to curtail that one yet.
Michael used to spin but now he mostly runs, swings his head from side to side.
When I was little, about 4-5ish, i waved my hands or fingers in front of my face, and got caught when my mom saw me doing it when she came around the courner (i think back then eather i was not listining well or she was sneaking around alot, cause i never remembered hearing footsteps, otherwise i probably woulda stopped, then again im looking at it from my standpoint today, back then maby i did not care so much that ppl saw me do it, in fact, i doubt i cared at all, now i would.Also, i shook my head alot, kinda like non-verbaly saying 'no' but doing it faster and not turning it 'looking' back and forth all the way, i did this in public to, and was still pretty young, around 9-10, i stopped doing these things, would not do them when i felt in danger of someone noticing, parents, friends, sister, stranger.
I have rocked myself to sleep my whole life, starting (and i vividly remember at age 3) until today. When I was little my parents caught me, maby i was making too much noise, or maby they were checking up on me, but they always asked "where is your arm?" it was underneath me cause as i rocked from side to side, i would roll over it, sounds very uncomfortable but it was my thing
. I got older, heavier, stopped placing my arm under me cause it would fall asleep cause of the weight, also, around 9-10 i started realzing that this behavior was not acceptable (tho my parents never punished me for it, they did always ask why i did these things, never did i have an honest answer for them) and hid eveything, did it in private. Never could I shair a room (collage dorm life was hell on Earth for me). Ill do this until the day I die, often, i rock and dont intend to sleep for an hour or 2, during this time I plan my next day (tomorrow) figure out some stuff, think about things and it seems to be the best time for thinking . Id never admit publicly (only on line) that I do such things, heheh.
flapping, jumping, sometimes sidewards glancing. Covering and un-covering ears over and over. Squeezing into tight spaces. She has spinning phases.Edited to add vocal stimming ALL the time...
I didn't know it was a stim when my son was doing it----but he has always done finger twisting, run around tables making weird noises, and even verbal noises only when he got up early in the morning and would be watching TV. He would just scream out and stop. That was it. I thought the kid had tourettes! He used to do hand twisting.
He hand flaps when excited while watching exciting shows and xbox. Can't flap so much when he's playing it. So he "jumps". He sometimes looks out the corner of his eyes--but I don't consider that a stim. I think thats just a sensory issue. He is newly doing this eye blinking thing---but it's probably a tic.
My daughter has a lot of vocal stims. She's always vocalizing. And she has some flapping hand stims.Just wondering...
Are stims something a child does out of boredom and is trying to find something to do? Or, is a stim something like a reflex? Both?
My dd has been rubbing her fingers together and making a facial griamce since she was one years old...she is five now. She does it when she is excited, it looks like a reflex. I have always been unsure about it...I think its a stim. Her doctor once told me it was a habbit/mannerism.
What does your child's stimming look like? Example: clapping hands in front of face or doing imaginary circles in the air with his finger, etc.
Just wondering what other kids with asd tend to do.
thanks!
Hi I am a granny to a 12 yar old Autistic boy who now lives with us because his parents no longer want him.
Kevin's stimming most often is shaking his stuffed animals and making them dance to his favorite music.
To relieve his tension he likes to make noises of all kinds we had to limit him to a half hour a day now because he can do this for hours and it seems to make him go too deep within himself.
Tons of Hugs
Alice
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