stimming and obsession with spinning objects for 2.5 yr old

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Autistic children typically stim to self-calm or to keep alert. If those needs remain unmet, he is not going to be productive anyway. Also, he may take up a different stim, which may be less benign. There have been behaviors I have needed to extinguish, but anything that was not harmful to himself or others, I tended to leave alone. Sometimes there are stims that are distracting to others you have to try to redirect to something else, but I have always tried to be cautious because you can't just pick something and it is that easy. It has to satisfy the same sensory need, and they have to take to it and want to adopt it.

Whenever I see stimming behaviors, I get excited. Those are the doors into these children's worlds. As long as there are stimming behaviors, these children can be developed. More worrisome is when you don't see stimming behaviors. I know one girl that doesn't exhibit much stimming behavior, and that's the case that worries me. Her mom says the girl has additional diagnosis beyond autism, and I tend to agree with her. As long as children stim, I know how to teach them. It's so much more difficult when they don't stim.

There are two ways of teaching: pushing, vs. pulling. In the push model, you push new knowledge to the children. That's how neurotypical children learn. In the pull model, you pull the children from there favorite activities into new knowledge areas. That's how autistic children learn. So when I see parents philosophizing, doing nothing, when their children are stimming, I almost want to scream: "You are supposed to be teaching!" You pivot around your children's interests, and insert "commercials" into their favorite activities or stimming behaviors. That's how you teach them. Also, do manual activities, like drawing pictures for your children, writing down speech bubbles, playing with building blocks, doing art craft (paper, color, scissors, glue, tape, etc.) I only realized years later that my elbow was so important to my children. My children learned a lot from my elbow. Looking at how other families didn't do any manual activities for their children, it became very clear to me why their children didn't develop. People need to realize that deep thinking skills will develop only when there is an "outer feedback loop." For autistic children, that means they need to generate their own manual output. And these children will only have fondness towards manual activities, if they were nurtured that way early in their lives.

Even later in school, my children's teachers would still work very closely with me, to make sure that my children continue to benefit from the "pull" model. For instance, just two days ago, my son's teacher e-mailed me. She said my son was interested in carnivorous plants and would like to write about them. My son told her he had some book at home on this topic. So she will make my son research facts and write 1 paragraph about each chapter, next week. For that, she was requesting us to send the book to school with my son. For the last two nights, I could see my son going through the carnivorous plant book word by word, paying very detailed attention, in preparation for his next week. See, schools can and do accommodate. Furthermore, I've realized that the same "pull" method can also be applied to neurotypical children. The teacher was actually requesting the entire class to work on writing "informational books." My point is, there is good overlap between how we can teach neurotypical children vs. how we can teach autistic children. It's not like autistic children need to always be extra burden for schools. The intersection area between teaching neurotypical children and autistic children is rather large. Individualized education does not always need to be burdensome. With the upcoming AR (augmented reality) technology, things will get even better.

thank you for all the sharing.. i am really grateful to be gettinf all your interesr and responses..

maybe i will share how i interwct with my son daily.. i do use some of the methods you all have mentioned..but there is always more to do and ways to do it better.. will appreciate pointers and constructive criticism..
i work a 9 to 5job.. so the mornings are pretty much jus a short time with him to make sure he eats.. will play with him abit.. mom helps him get dressed.. still leaening on that part.. he can twke off his pants on his own now and pull it on from his knees.. (i have separate wuestions and concerns also on how to best develop self help skills..)
he can wear his own shoes if they are like crocs but for others he may try and get frustrated and ill help him in small bits..after that he goes to his aba class..from 830 to 1130.. grandma picks him up.. brings him home..gets him lunch.. he will bap 2 to 430 or 5.. eat an early dinner..and ill be home around 530ish.. and thats the time i get to spend with him.. mostly one on one .. til bed rime around 830 9..

when i am with him i mostly try to follow his lead.. his default go to toy is cars.. he has loads of them.. and default playing mode is rolling rhem along a surface.. either floor or sofa or shefl.. over short distance ..back and forth.. sometimes theres some commentary from him lik the ambulance js goin to the hospital! or its going round and round! or where sthe truck going? sometimes tho i cna see him jus lying on the floor repeating the back snd forth motion..
i try to play along with him.. either by getting another car and try to chase.. or crash into him.. or what works well to divert his attention is for me to build a ramp for the car wnd let it slide down.. it may excite him andn he may follow and then repeat a few times.. sometimes i get him to help me build a train track..he cant do it independantly on his own yet so ill pass him a piece by piece to fit in and help him if he is havving trouble.. i also try to direct him sometimes so we are forming a shape w the tracks like a figure 8 or circle..

we also have legos and blocks.. its really hard to get his interrst to build things.. he may find the wheel singular piece in the blocks and just play with that.. rather than try to build a car.. someimes i can get him to join me in building a simple towrr.. jus grt him to add on singilar blocks or lego pieces onto the previous to see how high we go.. but may only lasy awhile.. how do i get him to wan to build stuff?

somomtimes we do drawing.. i have an ethc a skech and i can get him over excited if i say lets draw a fire truc together.. he seems to memorized the steps i repated with him a few times.. draw a rectangle.. 2 wheels.. a ladder.. and a circular spiral shape for the hose (his fav part of course)..
sometimes we tey with a crayon and paper too.. and he may repeat.. his grip w the pen or crayon is not strong yet so not great drawings.. but i can see it is jmproving so happy about that.. however.. interest may jot last long... and if its crayons he may atart to get distracted and wan to take the crayoj and roll on tje floor like a wheel..

which brings me to abother of his main play items.. basically any wheel like object.. he will roll it across the floor... usually roll it behind him so he can see it roll away from the side of his view or eyes.. and then chase the wheel to where it is.. then repeat.. if its an object hat can spin he would spin it.. watcj it spin then repeat.. with this.. i try to stop it if it a crayon.. telling him thats not what a crayon is for.. for other wheel items.. ring from stacking ring.. some puzzle piece.. and actual wheel that dropped of a toy.. i try to play with him.. with some turn taking.. u do your oll and spin.. rhen my turn.. checkout my roll and spin. and he gets it and seems to enjoy.. if its an object he knows im better at (spining) .. ike there was this motorcycle wheel that came oht but i could spin it like a top.. he woild come to me.. bring it to me and say papa”s turn or papa spin..without him even wanting to go first..

tv.. we watch some tv together.. mainly babytv channel he likes most cartoons rhere like stick mick or piere the painter .. or somce cbeebies -he like sarah and duck.. and abit of hey dougie.. he comments on them abit like wjat item he sees or who the character is and i join in.. he actually likes to watch wheel of fortune too( surprise surprise he loves the wheel part).. but may get distractdd and do somethin else when its too much gameshow talk..

ipad.. he used to love this..and still does but not as much.. i suspext he is getting bored of some games rhere now so i may need to update them.. we started around 18 months.. on a game called genius sort 2.. there was a game where u match eggs to flowers based on their color.. jus 2 colors.. he got it quite wuickly and love that game since.. he moved on to other levels in thay game and was ecellent in sorting shapes and colors..sizes still not 100 percent..
othet types like.. air vs land vehicles he ws ok.. we expanded also to other sorting games from tiny hands.. it was fun for him.. and this was one of the few activities i can see him focus and try and self correct.. and be excited about..
i limited play time to about 20 mins at a time.. with me.. and not alone.. i also admitedly did this aba like thing when he eas so into the ipad and asking for it and asked him to finish a manual puzzle first or stack some blocks first then ill let u play ipad..
now days i have some other games.. he likes dipdap for drawing and the cartoons.. kidloland for the tracing alphabet games..and also does okay in some simple jigsaw puzzle games..okay with 4 to 6 pieces..

for manual puzzles we have 4 piece puzzles and he can do yhem.. and those matching boards he can do them too..
for some other puzzles with more pieces .. sometimes he cant self correct to turn the piece the other way for it to fit.. or may get distractd or lose interrest.. i pull out the puzzle box sometimes and try to get him jntetested to do a few..

outdoor play.. this is my fav part.. part of our time together always involves going outside.. where we live there are plenty of smal playgrounds with slides and climbing stuctures.. every few blocks.. we have been to all i tjink.. maybe total of 8 or 10.. and i hsed to rotate around them.. and hit one or 2 of tjem a day..he started being aversive to slides but now he is fully confident about them.. small slides.. strep slides spining slides.. he sees one he knows where to go how to cljmb up and hes going down it with me just watching from the side.. pretty happy about that considering what it was like in yhe start.. i also got to see him lesrn to climb a ladder.. and simple climbing wall.. .. happy moments to see him have fun on tje play ground.. did he learn these cos of the one on one time an encouragement.. or just his age and he was growing up? im not sure but im just glad he enjoys it..
one thing though.. he normally plays his own thing.. even if therrs other kids rhere.. sometimes ill encourage him and he will follow another kid for abit.. but maybrevert to playin on his own.. i try to get him to say bye to the kther kid before we go.. if theres been one or 2 other kids in the playgrd.. and he does rhat.. sometimes whene r arrive and he sees another kid he may go and say hi.. and i can see interrst to play in him.. but am not sure how to help him sustain it or do the next steps so that he can actjally play w another kid.. its soemtimes better w an older kid.. who can direct play abit more.. today was great.. an older girl wanted to borrow his scooter.. he got upset at first when she jus took it.. so i told him .. its big sisters turn.. and then your turn.. what followed was .. without my intervention.. the girl riding the scooter.. my son chasing her behind excitedly.. the she returnd it.. then he rode it and she chased him.. and he came back got off and let her have her turn.. and repeat a few times..
our outdoor play also involes his scooter recently.. he seems to be learning it quite well.. able to stride snd manuver slightly..though sometimes doesnt look at where hes going as hes looking at the wheels! but main thjng is he likes it.. can sense he is proud of it.. and will hapily take it out on his own and ride on his own with me walking infront sometimes.. these bits where he js doin stuff on his own.. im realy happy to see..
after he got bette ron a scooter he asked to try to ride his tricycle.. he got the steering rightb recently in the past week (before he didnt grt the concept to steer the bike).. but he cant pedal the bike yet.. still tryin yo troublesheet if its cos of strength.. good control of the legs to keep them on the peda and push.. or if the legs are not long enoguh yet.. anywau the point is he knows what outdoor play is.. looks forward to it when i am home and it a great time for me to bond w him.. we talk walks back after playing and wometimes ill carry him and we will talk.. in a way.. pointing out items around us.. along the way..

story time is abother way i spend my time w him but thats the last bit i try to incorporate everyday.. as in my last post

so my 3 daily hours with hjm is spent in the above ways.. outdoor is a must snd indoor i try to go w the flow and do a combination of the aboive..

theres also the follwing mixed in some days..
-play dough-doesnt play for long and again not keen to build or create an item..
-buubbles- we take tuen to blow bubbles at home..
-swiming ( weekend only).. i bring him to the pool for some splashing about

so thats how his day is spent..
it was good for me to pen this all down too.. to see what i am doing.. and now think what i can do more..

i am interested in the manual activities jason mentioned and the reading skills that was mentioned.. now gotta try and see how to build on those..

He's 2.5. 2.5 year olds don't generally play with others well; they're into what is called "parallel" play.

As far as setting the bar for one with HFA: the sky's the limit. That means people with HFA could win the Nobel Prize.

I had zero speech at age 5. Zero social contact. By age 6, I had full speech, and was playing ball games with kids, though I was still a little immature. Like baseball and football, since I'm in the US.

Is he happy when you blow bubbles?

It sounds like he is doing a lot more than just spinning wheels around. If your object is to get him to play with things as the manufacturer intended -- that is not really the point with autistic children. If you don't like him rolling the crayon on the floor because it is making a mess, put some cheap butcher-type paper on the floor, where he is working. Voila, now you have art, and your floor is not marked up. If the object is to get him to play in a rigid, expected way, I think it is a natural impulse, but in the end, IMO, misguided. Autistic kids think outside the box and it is how many of them express their creativity. If you restrict your child to playing "the right way" then you are stifling that creativity IMO. It is fine to model the typical, intended purpose of the toy so he knows, but if he prefers to use the object in a different way, why not let him? You could model him and play the same way he does, too. Then he learns you are game to join him too.

Now all autistic kids are different, but my son, when he was very little (not now) seemed to be in his own world. (not all autistic kids give this vibe so strongly) So. I would join his, and then eventually he became curious about mine. When he was not interested in what I was doing and did his own thing, that is what I did. The more I played his way, the closer he became to trying things I wanted to do because I was making the effort to do what he wanted to do. This was not an instantaneous thing. it took time and effort -- and this is what I mean. And the object in this was to expand his world and teach reciprocity, not to get him to play "correctly."

A lot of the presents we are getting my son for the winter holidays are not traditional toys, but he uses them as toys, and it makes him happier than a lot of things other kids would love. The best present I think we ever got him -- the first time he showed really intense enthusiasm-- was a high-powered, college-level calculator.. We got the reaction a kid his age at the time would have given if he got a really nice bicycle or something like that. He does have toys he plays with "the right way" but they are not his favorite things. he also loves video games, which is nice b/c it gives him topics of conversation that other kids would be interested in also.

Even if your child does not seem in his own world, joining him in his play will reap benefits for you.

As far as building things goes, my son was not really interested in Lego blocks until fairly recently (fine motor skill issues) but he would play with the Mega Blocks (big size, blocks of similar style) and of course regular blocks. it started with the stereotypical autistic lining up and stacking of the blocks. If he does that instead of building with them, encourage it. You can mimic it as well, and then also build other things next to him (The parallel play KraftieKortie mentioned) and see what he does. Maybe he will do it, maybe not. If you are using Mega Blocks, or standard blocks, they won't have wheels mixed into it -- but if he finds a wheel and spins it, that is OK. My son also used to make the blocks into segments for letters and numbers and draw shapes by arranging them into patterns because he is hyperlexic. If he does that, let him. Why not?

I still spoon feed my 9-year-old daughter sometimes, though outside home she is pretty much independent. These kids usually take longer for those self-help skills. My suggestion would be to take them the way they are. I don't see a need to hurry them up in self-help skills just to please other people. Same with potty training. No need to try too hard. My favorite example is sea turtles. The sea turtles are completely independent from day one. They break out of their egg shells, run to the ocean, jump into the water, and start to swim and feed themselves. But then, would you like your children to be sea turtles? Autistic children, when raised properly, can do things that neurotypical children cannot do. Autistic children are born to be leaders. So, I don't mind spending additional time in raising them.


All that is good. But you also need to start to worry about persisting information. Three things come to my mind:

(a) Labels around the house. If detachable, even better. Draw pictures and write down words. I used to make label or figurines from poster foam boards, and then tape them on the back and attach them to walls or doors. If you use painter's masking tape, the child can actually dettach and re-attach the labels/figurines to the wall. I have made figurines of vacuum cleaners, trucks, iguanas, spiders. Whatever comes to your mind. I always label my figurines with words.

(b) 4x6 index cards and mini-photo album. Draw and write routine activities that the child experiences regularly. Anything from the train tracks, to taking a bath, to having breakfast, to playground structures like slides and swings, etc. Draw those pictures, write down words, sentences, and perhaps even use speech bubbles. When my children still did not talk, they were able to make requests by pointing to specific pages inside those card albums.

(c) Figure out how to use the multi-media features of your big-screen TV. That is one of the most frustrating things in my visits to other families. Most families have better TVs than mine, but most families don't realize that they can store video clips on USB drives and play on their big screen TV. You can also hook up some laptop to your TV if you like. The thing is, children love repetition. You need to store their favorite video clips on the TV, so that they can watch again and again. In my case, I made my own animation video clips. My son used to watch those video clips in infinite loop. They essentially became his new stimming behavior. And guess what? By inserting "commercials" into those video clips, you can teach these children new skills. That was how my son learned to focus on static images, and started to learn how to read. That was how my son learned to call me "Papa." That was how my son learned to say the word "No." That was how my son learned to add numbers from my funny elevator video.


YouTube of course is good. But frankly I don't see much value in iPad or other devices, beyond YouTube.

My experience is that (aside from video clip making) low-tech gadgets like magnetic drawing board, 4x6 index cards and mini-photo album, pencil, paper, tapes, scissors, etc, work out much better than high-tech gadgets. I work in the technlogy field, so I can't be anti-technology. But my experience is just that: no need to spend money on any high-tech gadgets. Those high-tech gadgets frankly are not effective.


There is absolutely no need to worry about the socialization part. It's a waste of time. Any effort on your side will end up harming your son. This is a very important point: don't let anyone tell you that your son needs to learn to socialize and play with other children. I find all those comments from other people exceedingly ignorant and patronizing: they know zero about autism, and they feel like they are the experts to make recommendations. Their starting point is that autistic children are sick and must be fixed. Nothing is further from the truth. Your son will socialize when he is ready and when he wants to. No need to do anything in that direction. Let him be who he is.


Get into the habit of using a magnetic drawing board at bedtime. Talk and draw at the same time for your son. Come up with funny drawings. Write down words and/or speech bubbles. Then, review things and happened each day that have made him mad/upset. Explain to him what happened. All the negative feelings from each day can be removed if you consistently draw and talk to your son. If you do that, you are almost guaranteed to have a happy child (even in the case of non-verbal children). If you don't do that, resentments can pile up, day after day, week after week, year after year. Frankly, I see violent autistic children from time to time. Children are not born to be violent. It's just that their parents have never bothered to remove the resentments from these children, via picture drawing, at bedtime.

In what field is your PhD, may I ask?

See, I am the first person in the world, to my awareness, to established many aspects about autism. If you have studied critical phenomena (as in condensed matter, e.g.: block spins in Ising Model) or quantum field theory, you'll know about renormalization. (By the way, the "spins" in Ising model has little to do with the spinning of objects in this thread, ha ha. Unless you think that electrons are also autistic, ha!) Autism is nothing but a renormalization phenomenon inside the brain. That means that instead of isolated neurons being the units of interaction, now the brain uses tightly-linked clusters of neurons as units of interaction. Autism is therefore a meso-scale phenomenon inside the brain. And as you may know, whenever there is renormalization, there is universality. It's a bit like the Central Theorem in statistics: no matter what your initial distribution is, upon averaging a few time, they'll all converge towards the Gaussian (Normal) distribution. In renormalization, it means that no matter what the underlying microscopic causes are, towards the meso-scale the nature of interaction of those clusters of neurons will be the same. That helps to explain the extreme genetic heterogenic nature of autism: the fact that autism can be caused by so many different genetic mutations.

Researchers are slowly waking up and searching for explanations to the heterogenic problem. See for instance:
Genetic heterogeneity in autism: From single gene to a pathway perspective
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763415300531
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/03/06/042218.full.pdf

It does not stop just there. I am also the first one in the world to propose the pro-picture vs. pro-video type of dichotomic subcategories of autism. If you know anything about modern Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning, you'll know that the two of the most famous approaches are Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) machines, which is an improvement upon RNN (Recurrent Neural Network). Our brain works like a Hamiltonian, shifting between momentum space and coordinate space. The coordinate space captures and synthesizes "concepts," the momentum space captures and synthesizes "processes." (It's best also to look at Deep Autoencoders related to CNN.) The CNN architecture corresponds to the coordinate space of storing concepts inside our brain. The RNN/LSTM architecture corresponds to the momentum space of storing processes inside our brain. So, it's all the most natural to have this dichotomy.

See, as a theorist, I don't need to carry out any experiment and I already understand autism much better than anybody out there. Using simple math (the square root law for outliers in statistics, as in the famous Birthday Problem), I can further infer that BAP (Broad Autism Phenotype) entered human race around 50,000 years ago and was responsible for the cave paintings, and clinical autism entered human race around 10,000 years ago and was responsible for the creation of written languages.

That's the beauty of having theoretical models. Today's social sciences have a lot of catch-up work to do: they are still stuck with what I call the "single-bit machine" approach. They work from bottom up, wasting all too much resources in chasing after meaningless paths... losing sight of the forest because of the trees. In the modeling approach, you start with minimum set of clues, you borrow analogies from other disciplines, and then derive consequences/predictions of your models, and check them against the real world. It's a much faster way of gaining true understanding of what's going on.

My children are happier and better developed than most autistic children out there, for a reason. Once you have a solid theoretical foundation, you know what to do and what not to do. I remove my children's frustrations in a matter of seconds, whereas other parents end up ruining their children's lives.

Quantum electrodynamics of bound states.
And you don't want me to point out every scientifically wrong or dubious sentence in the post above.
I am happy your children are well developed and I agree to your pull-not-push approach. I think it would be good even for NT children. My children are verbal and not even diagnosed. I can't tell wheater they are autistic or not because I can't really spot what is "typical" and what is not. I suspect at least one of them is Aspie but they both do very well in mainstream education, love to learn and have friends.
I draw little (I'm very non-visual myself) but I sing, dance, cut paper figures, build Lego scenes and roleplay with them.
I agree the science has a lot to do about autism and that some parents' intuition is infinitely more valuable when it comes to raising autistic children.

Please do. I don't think I did my PhD and two postdocs in theoretical particle physics for nothing. Ha ha. Renormalization of quantum field theories (Standard Model) was my specialty, particularly in strong interactions.

I don't doubt your knowledge on the Standard Model. The dubious part is: you throw facts from theoretical physics and then drive conclusions about autism with missing links between.

Evidence? Evidence that similar phenomenon doesn't occur in NT brains? Yes, you cited an article about genetic heterogeny of autism but it can be also explained by different mechanisms. Like, what suggested
ASDMommyASDKid, autism spectrum as an umbrella term for combinations of many different traits. So the best you can do here is to propose your hypothesis.

What does it even mean? Momentum space and coordinate space are two different sets of parameters to describe the same reality. A Hamiltonian (operator - or did you have something else in your mind here? This word has more than one meaning) in quantum mechanics can be written in either, like any other operator. In classical mechanics it uses both. And again - no slightest evidence that it has anything to do with how human brain works.

See, as a theorist, I do all I can to propose an experiment to prove me right or wrong. Because science is based on evidence and evidence comes from experiments and observations. Mathematics is based on proofs. Personal beliefs are based on someone's intuition. They can be right but they need a lot of work to become science.
Think of Einstein. It took years before his intuition of equivalence between acceleration and gravity took a closed form of General Relativity. His first attempts failed. In the principle, he was right from the begining but he needed to do a lot of work to put his ideas into a form that made them science.

Oh boy. I see. You haven't been following my postings. I've been talking about these things for years here. It's funny that being a theorist you are asking for evidence. Theorists don't work with evidences. Evidences are for experimentalists. When you have evidences you don't need a theorist anymore: it's already too late. Theorists work with clues and inspirations, and stay ahead of the game. You are not very familiar with all the research done out there on autism. You have some catch up to do.

Head circumference and brain size in autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26456415

Accelerated Head Growth Can Predict Autism Before Behavioral Symptoms Start, Study Suggests
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130140127.htm

Early Brain Overgrowth in Autism Associated with an Increase in Cortical Surface Area Before Age 2
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3315057/

Patches of Disorganization in the Neocortex of Children with Autism
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1307491?query=featured_home&
Autism involves early brain overgrowth and dysfunction, which is most strongly evident in the prefrontal cortex. As assessed on pathological analysis, an excess of neurons in the prefrontal cortex among children with autism signals a disturbance in prenatal development and may be concomitant with abnormal cell type and laminar development.

The autistic brain is characterized (in substantial number of cases) by overconnection inside the brain. This is similar to the self-interaction in field theories. The evidences in this area are undisputed.

This is like the dressing up of the bare electron into a physical electron. The same idea. Presence of self-interaction dresses up the original neuron into a larger-size "effective neuron."

Given a microscopic scalar field theory, with any parameter values that you can imagine, when viewed at longer distance, it'll converge into phi-4 theory, by renormalization group. That's the universality. All the non-phi-4 terms will die out. It doesn't matter what causes the additional interaction, nor the details how the additional interactions are implemented at microscopic level. As long as there is self-interaction, all scalar fields will show up as phi-4 theory at low energy. The microscopic theory could be spins, or string theory, doesn't matter.

For laymen, I've posted a "Dewdrops on a Leaf" model of renormalization of the autistic brain several times in this forum. Here it is again:

AMoRe: Autism, Modulation, Renormalization
http://www.eikonabridge.com/AMoRe.pdf

Neurotypical


Autistic


It's also interesting that people have linked renormalization to Deep Learning. This paper received great attention two years ago or so.

An exact mapping between the Variational Renormalization Group and Deep Learning
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.3831.pdf


I had friends working in speech recognition when I was still postdoc. That's something I've learned. For speech recognition, you need to work both in the time domain and the frequency domain. You need variables from both the coordinate space (time domain, in this case) and momentum space (frequency domain). So, in a sense, you kind of walk in zig-zag fashion in both domains.

One fascinating thing that autism has taught me, is that our brain works pretty much the same way. Our brain is wired in two dimensions as well. One dimension stores concepts (like CNN in Deep Learning), the other dimension is the Fourier conjugate of concepts, and that corresponds to processes (like RNN/LSTM in Deep Learning).



Our brain walks in zig-zag in this two-dimensional space. Sometimes it processes information in the concept space. Sometimes it processes information in the process space.

When you have a Hamiltonian as the time evolution operator, you effectively are walking both in x and p operators simultaneously. That's the same idea how our brain works, or how speech recognition was done in the old days.

In this sense, stimming is a Dirac Delta in the process space. Stimming behaviors are the building blocks (basis eigen-vectors) in the process space.

Autism is fascinating because it is like Gram staining of bacteria in biology that allows bacteria to be seen more clearly under microscope. Autism allows you to see the brain structure better.

This is the very point I disagree with you. If you don't care for evidence, your theories are no science anymore. Just divagations and fantasies.

thanks for the insights and i really appreciate it..
to answer an eaelier question, yes he is really happy when i blow a buble and even happier when he blows one or a few himself..
he is responsive in that sense..when playing w things he likes or is interrsted.. like

for alot of the points i had adopted some bit of it already..
i do join him and let him lead what he likes to do or play. and try to build on interests..
. i often review pictures from our play or weekend on my phone with him.. simetimes i have videos too.. and he loves to watch or see them and i will talk to him
about where we where.. remmeber that person? remember that thing u did?
but the magnetic board isea with speech bubles and custom videos is good.. as we can insert words and speech bubbles.. guess i have to get a bigger better one..

i am nowhere near the intellect to fully comprehend the above discussion but i do get that there are many ways of looking at autism.. and thers always more to learn

Hello,

I grew up with a similar condition. At a young age, I found an attraction to spinning objects. Ranged from pencils, to different toys. This did get in the way of my education as I couldn’t resist the urge to do so. When I used objects it stimulated my imagination and I found that music would enhance the experience. I am still figuring this out. As I am now 24 still doing the same. Although now I have a preferred object. A analog stick on old used controllers or rubbing my hands together. I would say don’t stress it, I have grown up to be an exceptional adult. Study your child, find they’re interest and assist them. You’re child maybe a hyper creative

thank you for the honest and encouraging words! my boy is now 7 going to 8 soon.. he has his challenges but boy has he grown and developed over all these years

My love of music + spinny objects is how I got into vinyl