Verbal Stimming | Autism PDD
Excessive talking is practically a hallmark of Asperger Syndrome. It seems that it's a social skills issue more than a stim. However, my son also verbally stims, sometimes saying the same thing over and over. I think it's like any other stim. But very verbal kids could be doing either thing. It might help to address it as a social skills issue. If it's a true stim, that may not stop it. I fully agree that we all stim. The problem with autistic kids' stims is that the are usually not socially acceptable and they can be intrusive or persistent. And, to the extent that they are not like normal human stims (humming, nail-biting, finger tapping), they are stigmatizing. So learning the time and place for stimming is key.
I'd like to chime in that my son NEVER stims inappropriately in public, so there is hope (if you care). He saves all that stimming (vocal stims, bouncing, etc.) for his own bedroom (and nobody ever told him NOT to stim in public or in front of us). We never did any behavioral modification either. He just seemed to 'wake up' and decide it's not appropriate.Hello everyone,
I am going to a class for positive behavior for children with Autism. Mostly everyone there said they have a child that stims. My son also stims but I noticed as he gets older it gets less and less.
The teacher brought out a good point, he said every one of us stims but with Autism it is considered unappropriate. He said, did you ever sit and listen to someone and your leg starts to go up and down or you tap your pen/pencil on the table. This is stimming but if you are normal it's OK. I never knew this was stimming but aparently it is. Well I just thought I would share I know this won't help sorry I wish you all the best and hope it stops.
My son Dilan stims less but now he has insomnia. I am learning when something goes away something else starts. Hopefully someday it will all get better!
I always thought stims were the release of stress. I used to allow ds to stim only in certain rooms of the house, lately I thought perhaps it could be bad for his self esteem to do that, so I gave him a free reign. Since then as soon as he gets home from school he wants to stim and just spends way too much time stimming... he doesn't do it in public but I'm sure if he doesn't cut down in the home, that will come too..
I want to go back to only allowing stimming in certain rooms ie, bedrooms and playroom, I believe it also gave him a sense that stimming is a personal thing, but I'm also interested to know how other parents deal with it..
Tricky issue this one...
Ryan use to do alot of vocal stims, but over the last year I find that he really only does it when he is upset with something or we are out in public, the grocery store is usually the worst. I have also been told by his teacher that he does this alot at school. I am guessing that it is stree/anxiety related since he does not do it at home where he is comfortable.
As far is helping you..I am sorry I can't help much with ways to help him stop this in public..I have tried alot of things and they just don't work. I have just got to the point where I have accepted this behavior because this behavior(vocal stims) must help him cope because when I try to get him to stop he only gets worse.
At 4, no one could even dx my son; now his differences are MORE apparent. I thought with all this therapy we would stop seeing some of this behavior, (I do have to admit the temper tantrums stopped long ago), but it seems new behaviors pop up.
From my observation, wife observation and our therapists observations my feelings tell me he is doing it for negative attention. But more importantly my gut tells me to check all avenues, so I will look into this further and assess with the help of our therapists and child phycologist the possibility of performing an FBA. But first I need to know what FBA stands for, can you tell me. Thanks. Hi MasonsMom, The way I view verbal stemming is a non verbal action usually done to releive stress or in many cases it just feels good for the child. Unfortunately these type of actions are not considered normal. I'm not an expert but at least this is the way I interpret verbal stemming. At least in my case I would to minimize this action. For me it seems it started once we minimized his tantrums and throwing/hitting. It seems grunting took the place of that. I just was hoping if anyone had any ideas on how to re-direct him, we tried alot of things.
Hi tzoya, The only reason why I mentioned that he may be doing it for negative attention is because his therapists feel the same way. Alot of times before he grunts he looks sqaure at my eyes before he does it. He usually does it when we ask him to do something he doesn't want to do or when we tell him to stop doing somthing he doesn't what to stop doing or when we turn of the tv and he is totally engrossed and so forth. But Thanks you for your reply, and I will mention the torette theory to his doctors and therapists and consult wih them. I really hope he doesn't have torettes, we barely get by now.
My son stims as well, he's almost 4 now. His jibber jabber has lesson but now he grunts. To me and his therapists it looks like he wants negative attention especially from me since I think he knows it drives me crazy. He grunts more at home than at school. To me it looks like the more he is occuped the less he grunts. Its funny some weeks its better and he seldomly grunts and some weeks its bad. We tried various things but nothing seems to work. If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks If this is a stim, it is NOT for attention. You can also have him checked out by a psychiatrist or neurologist for Tourette Syndrome. It's commonly comorbid with ASD's. It is not controllable by the sufferer but can be controlled by meds. If your son is getting behavioral interventions for this and it turns out later that is something he could never have controlled, how guilty will you feel? Also, if you are trying to "correct" something that is no more correctable than a hiccup, you will be INCREASING your son's frustration and likely making things worse. I would get him checked out. My son has Tourette's. Stimming is mindless. It's not used for communication. It's a solitary activity. It's not even clear if the child fully is aware that he is doing this. True stimming most likely won't help language. Echolalia supposedly can help language, but verbal stimming is just using words instead of wiggling fingers to calm oneself. There are two reason stimming is not great. 1. While a child is stimming, he is not doing something more productive. 2. Stimming appears to draw kids away from the world and our kids need to be brought INTO the world. Is there any way you can use that stim to bring him back into your world? Perhaps. The idea is not to take away their happiness but to show them how to use their happiness in more social and/or useful ways. I think the book Relationship Development Intervention might be helpful with this. Stopping stimming entirely is probably not even possible, but it's good to teach kids when and where to stim and substitute more socially acceptable stims when possible. Many ASD kids will play hand-held games. These are socially acceptable stims. Clearly, games like this ARE stims -- for NT and ASD kids alike. You know I've learned more from this web site than any place else!! Ok, so I need to know an example of a verbal stim. B/c he has plenty of inappropriate verbal but I've been thinking it was for other reasons. So for instance I'd guess his screeching could possibly be a stim, or is that b/c he reverts back when communication is to hard for him? What about inappripriate words? Specific pattern to this as well. Thanks!! SH Don't know why my pp is so LONG and empty! Anyway, this is for Akitasun: FBA stands for Functional Behavioral Assessment. You can search this site for FBA and get lots of info. The purpose is to observe the natural antecedent and the consequence of a targeted behavior. For example, if there are many occasions during the observation that your son is seen first hanging around by himself, then heard stimming, and then seen getting attention from an adult (be it positive or negative attention) it can be reasonably deduced that he is doing it for attention. (This has to be seen on several occasions). If, however, your son is in a loud room before the behavior occurs, then he does the behavior and then an adult leads him out of the room for time out in a quiet place and THIS happens over and over, it can reasonably be assumed that the behavior is done as an escape mechanism. If, on the THIRD hand, there seems to be no rhyme or reason, the behavior is either a genuine stim, which is done to satisfy something internal, or a tic, which is not under the child's control. A lot of what autistic kids do is for self satisfaction and has NOTHING to do with the outside world at all. AUTO = SELF. Many teachers make the PROFOUND mistake that higher functioning kids have some clue about what they are doing and can manipulate using these behaviors and can control them. Usually, the teachers are wrong. That is not to say that ASD kids cannot learn to control themselves and their behaviors, but volition should rarely be assumed. Our kids need to have the WAY they think retrained through positive reinforcement on almost a continual basis. That is what ABA is all about. And ABA techniques can work on more than learning the ABC's and 123's. Of course, it COULD be because your son wants attention. ANything is possible, so it's important to gather the real evidence, which is what an FBA does. For more info on this, go to cecp.air.org will ask me a question. I will answer it. He'll ask me the SAME question. Over and over and over again. I think they should hire him at Guantanomo! - with his speech being his WORST skill. It is also a stim, I believe. One that serves a purpose for him. Social attention. Most stims are more mindless than that, though.
Thanks everyone for your input; The verbal stimming I'm refering to is what Tzoya refers to as non productive; I've never had a problem with the echolalia, that I use to encourage and model speech. But the stimming in public, I find he does to avoid socializing. Ex. when a kid recently tried talking to ds, he kept saying over and over "don't talk to me" - he repeated it several times, or if we are around people and he starts making animal noises; my son can talk so there is no need for the sounds, but I know he's language delayed so he gets uncomfortable. Or, you try talking to him and starts repeating lines from Spongebob
I am happy that he's happy, but at almost 7, his differences are a lot more apparent than what could be overlooked a couple of years ago, and I just want him to try to fit into society without calling this extra attention to himself at times. I don't mean to offend anyone by saying this or sound ungrateful, because my son can talk - that's not my intent here. Hi i wonder if this is a verble stim ,squeeling,whooping,hi pitch sighing ,WOW its hard to explain noises,my ds does this more when he is stressed. Mostly when the house is quiet,although maybe i dont notice him at other times. i dont stop him because it is mostly at home,and mostly by himself. beccaposie, I'm no expert, but that's what I consider verbal stimming. I thought my sons had a big age gap - 14 yrs apart.
Hi Tzoya, Thank you for your information and I will definately use waht you have told me. Potty training In regards to potty training my son uses underwear for all of the day, sometimes he'll have an accident, maybe one or two times a week but thats due to him being engrossed in play, he always try to make but he falls a little short from making it. He seems to know it was wrong when he has a mishap because he goes oh no!! He is 3 years and 11 months. We still use a pull up at night, he unfortunately likes to drink before he goes to bed. We'll start to with hold liquids prior to bedtime shortly. One step at a time, remember you have to know when to pick your battles. I hope by November he will be totally potty trained. Stemming In regards to stemming I was always told to try to minimize the stemming by redirecting your child. In fact we were told we should do this as much as possible. My impression was that stemming is not a form of communication but a relief mechanism for your child and should not be encouraged. I believe the longer a child stemms in a certain way, the harder it is to correct this behavior. I have seen where one stem is corrected another one appears in its place. The best way to minimize this is by increasing their usage of correct speech and communication, which is what we all want. Diet We have just started my son on a diet (no dairy, no wheat diet)/Glucose free, Caesin Free Diet. Has anyone had any possitive results. Just wondering.
If so, Mason occasionaly does a moaning type stim....this makes me nuts, I think he knows it. BUT more often we do what I call "yammering". It is just him being happy. When he is playing or content he walks around and makes just really random sounds (we are non verbal). I LOVE when he does this. Besides hoping that encouraging it will lead to language....(I often echo him) It is just nice to know and be able to see that he is good. That at the end of the day, for all we struggle with, he is happy and doesn't seem to have a care in the world.
The sound of his "yammering" is only second to to that DEEP belly laugh.
Just thought I would add that I feel like Mason's stim is a positive thing.....
Honestly, attempting to stop him from making his happy sounds would kind of break my heart. I love the confirmation that he is happy. There is NO stress or upset about it, they are VERY MUCH happy sounds, accompanied by happy behaviors.
How does making him stop benifit him? We are just starting to get a couple of vocabulary words that aren't falling away......
I have so much to research and between diet/sleep stuff and learning about IEP's, this will take me a while to get to...I can only say that last week Mason started saying no and shaking his head APPROPRIATELY! This is real communication to me, he can say mom/maaaaa/mommy and something that sounds like Amy (grrr) and go. This is like real communication, and I have noticed his "verbal stimming" being more common lately, louder and with more variations.
I think I will refrain from redirecting him until I can read up on this too...and see how his FX dx may lead to a different intrepretation. Either way, it isn't a problem and if he does do it in public? I have been too busy enjoying happy noises to notice, I would have just chimed in with him so.....
Stimming -- self-stimulatory behavior -- is exactly what you describe it to be. A way the child tries to get relief from what's bothering him. It could be stress from poor communication/social skills, it could be sensory issues. It could be physical issues like hunger or sleepiness. It's just that the child is being pressured by thing he can't handle and therefore he stims. The old cartoon of an expectant father pacing and pacing is an illustration of a stim. No one would tell that father to stop pacing. He's nervous. It's a natural reaction. Well, many of our kids live in a constant state of nervousness because they have difficulty handling what the world throws at them, especially when they are too little to communicate properly or have very many skills. It is certainly true that stimming can draw them away from the world, but lack of stimming is not going to draw them in. If we told that father to stop pacing, he'd probably start tapping his fingers or light up a cigarette -- both forms of stims -- but he WOULDN'T stop worrying. I think you have to consider this. It may be possible to show your child that he must stim in only one place. Or give your child substitute activities that serve the same purpose (looking at a pinwheel instead of car wheels, for example, because that's what we DO with a pinwheel -- we look at it spinning). You can make it less socially stigmatizing. YOu may even get your child to allow you to participate in the stimming. But if you take that outlet away, your child will do EXACTLY what he's doing. Come up with a substitute stim. And THAT stim may be worse. I know there are people who say -- suppress it -- but I think that philosophy is dying. I haven't know a single child who was able to stop stimming just because someone wanted him to.
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