Chanting all the time

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Hello. My son is 6.5. He is "verbal" but his language is nowhere near fluent. When he wants something, he can ask for it, and get his needs met, but aside from that, he won't converse, and basically just chants. It will be things he's heard, things people have said to him, random things, etc….but he can go at it for hours. While he has always been echolalic, his chanting now is constant (at least at home). The funny thing is that he apparently doesn't do it at school so much (he goes to a special needs school and asked his teachers). I guess my question is, what can I do? Or should I just let him do it? Sometimes he will do it out loud in public. I know there is a reason for it and maybe it is self-soothing, but I do want him to understand that there is a time and place for this.
Does anyone have a child who did this? Did they grow out of it? How did you handle?
Thanks.

I can't speak to any of the questions that you asked, but I can say that people call this behavior "verbal stimming" on WrongPlanet.

Stimming time is learning time. Please chant this sentence everyday to yourself so that you don't forget.

Play along with your son's chanting. Record it. Made cartoon videos out of it. Stimming behavior is an invitation from your son to the outside world. He is telling you: here is the door to my world, please come on in. So don't just stand there.

My son is 6 years old. He stims with elevators. From elevators he has learned most of the skills he needs in life, like: drawing, writing, typing on computer, talking, math addition/subtraction problems, building electronic circuits, writing computer programs, etc. Elevators also helped to get rid of some of his sensory/rigidity issues (like refusal to change car seat and refusal to wear hats.) A few weeks ago, I took him to elevator ride in a big shopping mall. To my surprise, he asked a stranger family's dad: "Hey, what floor are you going to?" The person told my son the floor number, and then my son pushed the button. He did the same with other people, like 5 or 6 times during our visit to the mall. That is, my son is initiating conversation with strangers. So, I'd add socialization to the list of skills my son learned from his passion with elevators. Here is the "Connected Development Graph" that I have mentioned before in this forum.



From the stimming behaviors of autistic children, you can develop them into full-fledged adults. It's up to the parents whether they choose to view stimming as a gift, or a disaster. To me, the stimming behaviors of autistic children are the backbone, the trunk, to their development. From this trunk, you grow the branches and the leaves to their success.

You basically play along with your son's stimming, and take it as opportunity to introduce him to other skills. In real time, you stop him for a brief moment, and ask him to do one simple task: whatever comes to your mind, it could be running in a loop with you for a few seconds, ask him to go tap tap tap on someone else in the family, ask him to tell someone: "I am a good boy," or you can write a few words in blank cards and ask him to read the words out, etc. And then you repeat the playing and learning cycle. The learning part needs to be brief, only a few seconds at a time. You can lengthen the learning time or add in multiple learning tasks, after he gets used to the routine. In offline mode, you can record his voice and insert into cartoonish video clips. For instance, in this video I captured my son's humming a song and inserted into a video clip.



Kids are totally fine...they are not sick. It's the adults who are sick and need behavioral correction. That's my take on autism, throughout the years.

Yes, this is called verbal stimming and my 10 yr old son started it when he was about 4 and it has never stopped. It make take different forms (noises, words, phrases, random thoughts, etc....) but it has never stopped. I hate to say it, but it drives us crazy at times.We love our son dearly, but sometimes we have to ask him to please go into another area of the house to do it. We have to have our sanity too. Sorry if that seems harsh.

He has learned to control it to some degree at school and other places, but it kind of comes and goes.

On a positive note, I have read that the verbal stimming will help language development and my son is quite verbally fluent at 10 yrs old. So, you may want to allow him to do it. A good set of earplugs may be in order.