Stimming?

[Guest guest]

I have a 4 yr old, NT " ish " son. I say that because although he appears NT, I

swear there is no such real thing because many of the NT kids if you look do

things that would not be considered NT. He does something, that just dawned on

my would probably be considered stimming. He comes up to my husband and I, and

in a non-aggressive or anger induced means slaps/pats us like he is playing the

drums. Only does it to us. It is not only annoying, but have to admit the

first reflex is to slap him back or grab his arm. We repeatedly say to stop it,

but really I now see it must be some sort of stimming mechanism and sense he

can't really help it. I haven't paid too much attention to discussions on

stimming, so was wondering if there is a list of stimming-101 things which

contributing to this action? Someone mentioned to try vit B to calm the nerves.

But recently we've put him on a vit. from megagenics which has really eliminated

his chewing (again, another non-NT thing). When we scaled back to one a day the

chewing picked up again, so he takes 2 and the chewing stopped. Thinking maybe

this slapping has been increased from the vitamin.

Any thoughts? Uggh, or is the " fix " to find out what in this multi vit/mineral

is helping to stop the chewing, and what in it is contributing to the

slapping-what a drag if that's the case.

Kari

[Guest guest]

Kari, Haleh and group: I agree that the drumming could be stimming but combined

with the chewing, it indicates to me that perhaps he is also sensory seeking.

The chewing is definitely fulfilling a need for oral input and the drumming may

fulfill some other sensory need.

Lynn

haleh niazmand <halniaz@...> wrote:

Kari,

I see various versions of these in my son when there is proliferation of gut

pathogens.

If whatever stimmy behavior comes with obsession and inflexibility, it usually

signals viral, I am learning that when it is also accompanied with

opositional defience it is likely to be bacterial, and giddy and drunkish is

the sign of auto-brewery created by yeast.

Best,

Haleh

--- Kari Trautman <karitrautman@...> wrote:

> I have a 4 yr old, NT " ish " son. I say that because although he appears NT,

> I swear there is no such real thing because many of the NT kids if you look

> do things that would not be considered NT. He does something, that just

> dawned on my would probably be considered stimming. He comes up to my

> husband and I, and in a non-aggressive or anger induced means slaps/pats us

> like he is playing the drums. Only does it to us. It is not only annoying,

> but have to admit the first reflex is to slap him back or grab his arm. We

> repeatedly say to stop it, but really I now see it must be some sort of

> stimming mechanism and sense he can't really help it. I haven't paid too

> much attention to discussions on stimming, so was wondering if there is a

> list of stimming-101 things which contributing to this action? Someone

> mentioned to try vit B to calm the nerves. But recently we've put him on a

> vit. from megagenics which has really eliminated his chewing (again, another

> non-NT thing). When we scaled back to one a day the chewing picked up again,

> so he takes 2 and the chewing stopped. Thinking maybe this slapping has

> been increased from the vitamin.

> Any thoughts? Uggh, or is the " fix " to find out what in this multi

> vit/mineral is helping to stop the chewing, and what in it is contributing

> to the slapping-what a drag if that's the case.

> Kari

>

>

[Guest guest]

> I have a 4 yr old, NT " ish " son. I say that because although he

appears NT, I swear there is no such real thing because many of the NT

kids if you look do things that would not be considered NT. He does

something, that just dawned on my would probably be considered stimming.

Everyone stims, even NT folks. It is the nature and persistence of

the stim that is relevant.

>>He comes up to my husband and I, and in a non-aggressive or anger

induced means slaps/pats us like he is playing the drums.

My son did this for a while. Turns out he had seen it in a video.

>>Someone mentioned to try vit B to calm the nerves. But recently

we've put him on a vit. from megagenics which has really eliminated

his chewing

Commonly associated with zinc deficiency, so might have been that if

the vitamin contained more zinc than copper.

>>Thinking maybe this slapping has been increased from the vitamin.

> Any thoughts?

Might be. Most vitamins are high phenol, so try giving it with

No-Fenol. Also, does the vitamin contain iron? My son was iron toxic

and giving iron caused problems.

Dana

[Guest guest]

My son is 14 and still does some stimming when he is stressed. He goes to his bedroom and stims for about 30 minutes and then is better.

Watch this video about a non-verbal teen who tells you why she needs to stim.

http://wimp.com/autisticgirl/ue, 8/10/10, Thorpeheather@... <Thorpeheather@...> wrote:

From: Thorpeheather@... <Thorpeheather@...>Subject: Re: Stimming?Autism Treatment Date: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 4:25 AM

We have always had to deal with a lot of stimming, mainly verbal but a lot of visual when he was younger. Rightly or wrongly (who knows!) we always believed in stopping the stimming most of the time to teach how he should be behaving. There are times where we allow it though, mainly when we know he has stretched himself and is tired but he does this in his bedroom and is usually in the form of rolling on his bed to music. We then view it as a form of relaxation.

Don't get me wrong, he does get away with it at other times but we try not to make it the norm. We also have been firm with obsessions and change things frequently. He now has few of these and this is very noticeable when compared to the other children at school.

By the way, as ' speech and understanding have improved so much, I have noticed that if I repeat his verbal stim directly after him loudly, he doesn't like it and tells me to stop. I normally have to do this again as he repeats his stim a second time. Again he tells me to stop and I explain that it is obviously annoying him like it does me. Rarely do I hear it a third time. This is telling me that he can control the stim if he wants to or if it is brought to his attention. Interesting eh?

Always a difficult subject as everyone has their own way of dealing with it.

In a message dated 10/08/2010 02:21:50 GMT Daylight Time, biomedhotmail (DOT) co.uk writes:

Thinking about stimming.It is so difficult to know when to intervene. From the off can we be nice, because there's all sorts of peeps on here (to use Mandi's excellent term)But and myself have been talking, and we were thinking when little bloke is ill, he stims more, and that is valuable, in that we often figure out what he needs to help his body. I think there might be people on here who know viruses are about when visual stims crop up.Having said that, there's a lot of fear around stimming when I talk to other parents, because to quote Andy W at the TA Conference in Bournmeouth, our children are going into a kind of "screensaver" mode, in other words they're switching off, and that's something a lot of us want to try and help them deal with, avoid, or otherwise. We make judgements. Is that right? Do we just let our children do this or what? I'm trying to understand it. We collectively probably are going to

understand it better than any textbook. With my little bloke the problem is if we let him, he stims himself into oblivion and can't dig himself out. So we can't really let him do very much without us and go into an environment where people don't understand it. There's well meaning people who want to help us, but actually can make it worse; one place he used to go to he seemed happy to go in and was coming out a wreck, go in communicating and calm and come out really hyper. We found out eventually that he was spending two solid hours "playing" with the same set of trains and pulled him out after the third session. They said, "he's happy in his own world, you need to accept he's autistic". We still don't know whether we made the right decision to pull him out = he just seemed so physically a mess at the end of it. Also it crossed our minds that was this behaviour because of sensory demands of the new environment or anxiety he couldn't tell us

about? It didn't appear so. The structure was lac king though, that wasn't a good thing either, and the environment was free play, so the assistants would not and could not intervene and re-direct.How on earth do you draw the line? All the different therapies have a take on it. From what I understand Son Rise seems to have a good handle on it = they say join it, (but wait until you are invited in, or given "the green light", because then it becomes non-exclusive, and social skill is developing; why should a person with autism venture into our perception when we judge and tell them theirs is wrong. ABA/VB say limit stimming; Floortime say it is a sensory need so break through it and give the child replacement behaviours.Biologically we know better than anyone, on here, that the kids have got problematic upregulated ANS systems and problems that mean their stress response is different to ours. NOT WRONG. Just different.So difficult

- there's a lot of smart people on here, It would help to hear what you think about it. How you deal with it, if you want to chip in.Take care allEileenOff to stim on a cigarette!

[Guest guest]

You could take all of his stims and put them on a chart so he only has some much time for each stim per day. Example: 30 min computer, 30 min dvd play, 30 min tv. Also, I think some stim can be good exercise such as trampoline, running back and forth, bouncing on the bed.

From: Margaret <m.collins9@...>Subject: Re: Stimming?Autism Treatment Date: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 5:55 AM

Thank you for starting this topic. I don't know what to do or where to go with Henry's stims. He has plenty of time to stim, that's part of the problem. I let him stim with marbles for an hour or even 90 minutes when he gets up very early becuase I am in no fit state to do anything at that time of day and it keeps him occupied. I haven't found other more desirable activities for that time of day that don't turn into stims - eg listening to music with head phnoes he became obsessed with the headphones; teach him to enjoy a partucluar dvd and he becomes obsessed with the dvd and stims with it. Going on the computer ditto - same thing over and over again. My relationship with him has suffered I think with my health problems, with the fourth Tribunal going on, with all the admin I have to do to kkeep the ABA going etc. I think he needs an adult devoted to him all the hours he is awake and I can't do it and I'm not going to get the money to pay someone.I

am too tired to be a lively companion to him. I am not sure what to do about stims - I think that unacceptable ones need to be stopped/reduced eg making noises in public, also self-injurious behaviours and so on. I am wondering whether to give up on trying to meet his needs at home altogether, even though his learning has ben so good on his VB programme.We has a care worker for several years when he was young who was heavily into son-rise, but neither Henry's dad or I was impressed. How do you ever get them to learn any skills and to learn to behave acceptably or to learn to work and pay attention and to learn to read and write if you go down the son-rise route? I also can't stand the requirement for the parent to be oh-so-up and excessively (falsely, I would feel in my heart)encouraging in a silly high pitched voice for years on end. No it's not for me!I went to an RDI intro day and felt it was for the more intelligent child who already had

some skills.Margaret>> Thinking about stimming.> > It is so difficult to know when to intervene. From the off can we be nice, because there's all sorts of peeps on here (to use Mandi's excellent term)> > But and myself have been talking, and we were thinking when little bloke is ill, he stims more, and that is valuable, in that we often figure out what he needs to help his body. I think there might be people on here who know viruses are about when visual stims crop up.> > Having said that, there's a lot of fear around stimming when I talk to other parents, because to quote Andy W at the TA Conference in

Bournmeouth, our children are going into a kind of "screensaver" mode, in other words they're switching off, and that's something a lot of us want to try and help them deal with, avoid, or otherwise. We make judgements. Is that right? Do we just let our children do this or what? > > I'm trying to understand it. We collectively probably are going to understand it better than any textbook. > > With my little bloke the problem is if we let him, he stims himself into oblivion and can't dig himself out. So we can't really let him do very much without us and go into an environment where people don't understand it. There's well meaning people who want to help us, but actually can make it worse; one place he used to go to he seemed happy to go in and was coming out a wreck, go in communicating and calm and come out really hyper. We found out eventually that he was spending two solid hours "playing" with the same set of trains and

pulled him out after the third session. They said, "he's happy in his own world, you need to accept he's autistic". We still don't know whether we made the right decision to pull him out = he just seemed so physically a mess at the end of it. Also it crossed our minds that was this behaviour because of sensory demands of the new environment or anxiety he couldn't tell us about? It didn't appear so. The structure was lacking though, that wasn't a good thing either, and the environment was free play, so the assistants would not and could not intervene and re-direct.> > How on earth do you draw the line? All the different therapies have a take on it. From what I understand Son Rise seems to have a good handle on it = they say join it, (but wait until you are invited in, or given "the green light", because then it becomes non-exclusive, and social skill is developing; why should a person with autism venture into our perception when we judge

and tell them theirs is wrong. ABA/VB say limit stimming; Floortime say it is a sensory need so break through it and give the child replacement behaviours.> > Biologically we know better than anyone, on here, that the kids have got problematic upregulated ANS systems and problems that mean their stress response is different to ours. NOT WRONG. Just different.> > So difficult - there's a lot of smart people on here, It would help to hear what you think about it. How you deal with it, if you want to chip in.> > Take care all> Eileen> Off to stim on a cigarette!>

[Guest guest]

Lynn

Thank you for the missing piece of my puzzle.

I really don't know what to say - I cried watching this, not out of

sentimentality, but for what I understood, but didn't empathise with.

It is great you posted it - for me, its the last word. I am sending it to

everyone connected with our family who ask me lots of questions I couldn't

answer before.

Eileen xxx and xx