hand flapping (and jumping on the spot)

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Hi All,

I am a bit concerned about the hand flapping thing. My daughter is 6 years old now, and she is the tallest one in her class, so this makes her look like an 8 year old. Hand flapping was not an issue when she was younger but now it stands out more. I know this is a form of expression she uses when she is excited about something and I do not know if it is wise to teach her how to suppress this behavior.

How did you deal with such issue? Any ideas?

thanks!! !

Well when I was a kid I would do crazy sweeping arm waving randomly all the time. My parents would tell me don't do that in public because people would think I'm weeeiiird, you know, but... It's not something you can "suppress". Now it's just manifested as eccentric and flowing hand gestures whenever I do anything. Kind of like Jack Sparrow in pirates of the caribbean

It's just one of those things. Maybe reminding her that it looks silly; I wouldn't say anything like 'weird' or 'stupid' or whatever else negative, because these things aren't negative - but it is useful to know how you're being perceived, lest she decide she wants to change it. And AS people as you know tend to not not be aware of how people perceive us....

My son is 6 also and is a hand flapper. He has also recently started hitting himself in the head. He does a lot of vocal stimming (making strange noises) We cannot get him to stop the behaviors, but we ask him not to do them when we go places like a restaurant or to church. For the most part he can control these behaviors. He was doing them at school last year and it was causing a lot of problems in the classroom. But so far this year it hasn't been too much of a problem. I am sure some will criticize this approach, but I have said to him " You don't see other children doing this--do you?" I don't belittle him or anything, I am just pointing out to him that it is not what people normally do. I try to let him do it at home because I know trying to suppress this all the time is not a good thing. Good luck!

In what way is it becoming an issue? If the other kids are bullying her for it, I would sit her down and explain that it's a behavior that's perfectly fine, but that she should do it in private. If she needs to get all the energy out, tell her to take a bathroom break and jump and flap in the bathroom.

If the other kids don't care, then I say do nothing. Hand flapping is fun and calming, and if it's how she de-stresses, don't make her feel that it's "bad." Trying to suppress her aspie behaviors will only make her feel insecure and even more anxious.

Explain that stimming is a-ok at home or in private, but out in public it can alarm and surprise other people. Maybe come up with some covert stimming for public places so she doesn't have to bottle it all up? (Like a squishy stress toy keychain or a rubix cube, etc)

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Hi!

My little girl, who is almost 5, was just diagnosed with PDD-NOS. She does this quite often. What the psychologist suggested was to use something called "DRO" or "Differential Reinforcement of Other behavior" strategy. Not sure if I will do this, or just try to replace it with something more socially appropriate and like the others have said, start encouraging her to do it in private. It involves presenting a preferred activity contingent upon not engaing in whatever the behavior is for a set period of time...she said to start with say, 10 seconds. During these sessions, the adult states the contingency (e,g., If you have quiet hands, you can earn [preferred toy], and then leaves the room (you find a way to watch though). Once the time interval is over, you provide her with whatever the reward is. The interval is then increased until you get up to 10 minutes. Evidently, this procedure proves effective in maitaining low rates of flapping, even when the child is alone. I guess the urge to do it goes away? I used to teach her to clap when excited and that worked for a while. Our kids almost seem to old for this to work, but I guess others have used it with success.

My son is 13yrs and does a full body kind of something like he is been electrocuted, he does this from time to time but not as often. Its very strange! He also does noise when he is demonstrated the body movement.

My 6 yr old son will run around the room at home waving his hands, hitting himself in the head and making all kinds of crazy noises. He can do this for long periods of time. We try to let him do it for a period of time, but sometimes his noise level is a bit unbearable. We tell him he may continue to be as loud as he wants, but he needs to go to his room as it is bothering us ( We are only human, and he gets REALLY loud) It can go on for an hour or more! We have tried everything to help him change this behavior to no avail.

However, we are noticing that he is able to control these behaviors when we are in public. If someone saw the way he behaves at home, they would think he was mentally challenged (sorry, I don't mean to be offensive) However, when we are out and about, he can carry on a small conversation and appear mostly normal...

We have been dealing with this forever, my DD is now 4. We tell her quiet hands, quiet body every time we are out in the "world" and at school her IBI tutor would gently remind her. Also I ask her how why she is doing it when we are at home and out and about.. she tells me "mommie I am excited!!" I tell her to talk about how she feels to me instead of flapping/jumping when we are out(she used to do it alot when she was trying to not go potty - that actually helped me in potty training at home but I did alert her teacher/IBI team about it being a possible red flag at school re: possible accident, you know kiddos and gut issues ).
The flapping/jumping has gone down TONS. Not happening that much anymore wherever we go. She already knows at this age that what she does is different, when I changed her diet and got her on the biomedical it's pretty much disappeared.(probably also due to her maturing and expressing herself, my working with her doing pretend school play at home and scenarios out in the world). She does a little verbal stimming, but not much.

We shall see what happens next week when the stress of school starts however.... UGH.

I was hoping that when her speech comes more fluent she would not need to flap her hands ....we'll see

I'm 16, my language is fluent and I still run, pace, bounce my leg jump and flap around along with noises which - according to my mother - make me sound 'mentally challenged'. I find that it helps provide an outlet for my emotions.

Perhaps, you could try to encourage more subtle stims.

Stims are a form of self soothing when over excited, nervous, or when concentrating, etc... Asking an Aspie to not do it is like saying "I don't care how bad it itches, don't scratch." You can do it but the itch will just about drive you crazy until you do scratch it. When stims are distruptive in the classroom, most OT's will try to redirect to something less distruptive than flapping, gesturing, noise making. Squishy stress balls are a tried and true redirect. Part of thsi strategy is to also work with your kid and teach him how to recognize the stim behavior, what the urge to do it feels like and to redirect it to the less disruptive activity. Stopping it altogether is asking a kid to remove self soothing behavior that he needs to help manage his day. my daughter is a rocker - side to side especially when she is focused and paying attention her hardest. It is noticable but not distruptive in the classroom. Just different. I've told them as long as it's not distruptive - leave it alone. It's not hurting anyone and it is helping her.

Work with your OT and discuss your sons sensory needs. Stims are a sign of sensory integration and/or sensory deficit problems. Your OT can do a full evaluation to determine exactly why your son uses these bahvaiors and it will guide you in the best way to work with, around and through them.

My six yr old son has been diagnosed PDD-NOS. His SPD issues are primarily in language usage, receptive processing deficit...has trouble with 'how' and 'why' questions, but has been getting private therapy in speech and OT for 2 yrs in addition to what our district's special services has to offer by way of an LLD program...

Over the last 2-3 yrs...his stims and physical OCD-like behaviors have come and gone...he's grown out of one...another one surfaces. For example, he used to rub his fingers together when he was idle or drinking a drink...rub tears or moisture away from his eyes after a yawn or tantrum and get very upset until it was dry...that is all pretty much gone. But he still does some running...he's doing something new which concerns me...reading through this string, I'm not sure if I should ignore it or try to redirect.

He is flapping his hand from side to side while he runs, or is in between activities...more and more he is doing it...at first, I was asking him to try to not do it. Then I spoke to his therapists about it, and they suggested that I should ignore it...that calling attention to it, even negative, may make him want to do it as an attention getter. I don't agree with that, because he seems to not be able to stop from doing it...but I left it alone a few weeks.

This morning, the day after his birthday party, he's very excited and I noticed him doing it alot...so I asked him, "baby try not to do it". Later he was playing...and he says to me on his own "mom, I'm going to try not to do this okay? I'm trying not to mom, but I can't help it." I asked, "Baby, what do you feel like inside that makes you need to do that with your hand?" He said, it was like a "tiger scratching"...then he gently put his palm to his head a few times to gesture that it was a pounding feeling and said "it gives me a headache"...asked me "can you get it out of there, mom?"

Atticus and others...what do you think of that? What should I do? When I discussed it with his therapist she resurfaced the medication discussion, which I absolutely REFUSE to entertain. Should I discuss with pediatrician, and maybe redo his neurological evaluation from 2 yrs ago?

He's asking me to make it stop, what can I do?!

Thanks, Andra