Hand flapping

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Hi all. I just wanted to see how many of your children flap (or used to flap their hands) My son seems to do it when he is excited. I am not sure if it is a stim, or a way to show his excitement. Did your child outgrow it? My son is 4.5 and has AS

mine used to flap a lot now he taps a hanger or something of a similar shape. he does it when he is excited or needs to explain something (explanations and small talk are hard for him).

I have never noticed mine "flapping", he will throw his hands out wildly if he feels very frustrated, but more likely that he will make some awful noise instead. His main non-upset stim seems to be singing, very high pitched and frequently adjusting the beat as he pleases. I am considering getting him lessons, as far as stims go if he could just get the key correct most likely no one would even notice so he could do it where ever he pleased as long as it isn't very loud.

i do it.... i'm 29

I did it yesterday and I'm a young 33

It doesn't happen often, and yesterday was pretty bad because I was doing verbal stimming as well ("pom pom pom pom pom") in time with the flapping. It stopped almost as soon as I got home, because we had been out in public to have breakfast with friends, and I don't like sitting for hours on end.

My son used to flap hands and now he does some type of abstract hand signals instead. He went from one type of stimming to another on his own. He's now 7.

My son has never flapped. He twirls his hair as a calming stim and swings his whole arm in a big circle as he runs for a big stim. and for a long time talked without stopping for a general stim.

(edited for spelling.-------- boy was I tired when I wrote that. Tate is not sleeping much these days so neither am I)

DS did not flap his hands until recently and it is only his right one. He moves his fingers non-stop when he is awake. About a month ago he started turning his hands up with his arms at his sides and would flap them. Now it is his right one flapping violently out in the air. He also claps in threes when we are expecting a change in weather--he used to clap a lot but doesn't as much.

My daughter will be 8 in Feb and she does the hand flapping when she's excited or doing her imagination.

My son used to hand flap, but since he's been learning to play piano he's started drumming his fingers instead. What's interesting is that he's not just "drumming", he's playing broken chords, or practising phrases of music he's learning.

He's obviously obsessed with music, and his stimming is in fact helping him to progress faster at his chosen subject. But if he doesn't have a flat surface to practise on, he'll resort to hand flapping. I don't mind that so much... well, I'm thirty eight, and I'm still at it.

I think it gets more contained, and managable as you get older.

Mine is always done to some sort of rhythm, often to a song or song fragment that is running through my head. It helps me cover it better in public.

21 and I still do it sometimes...I realize it's not "normal" so I don't do it in public but when I'm really happy or excited I'll do it. A few weeks ago my NT boyfriend saw me do it for the first time. He kind of gave me a weird look but he knows I have Asperger's so he just shrugged.

My two year old does it a lot when he's excited.

I'm 15 and I do it a lot.

My son used to do it all the time when he was younger. Once he started school, though, he learned to control it in public. He's 19 now and every once in awhile, I'll notice him doing a toned down version of handflapping - more like a couple of quick shakes of his hands.

My husband says he also used to handflap when he was young. I don't see it often but he still does it every once in awhile.

My 8 year old son flaps a lot. I think it started when he was about 3 or 4 and the first definate memory I have of it was when we went to a model railway exhibition and he saw a working model of Thomas the Tank Engine!