His Stims & My Response

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My son is newly diagnosed - 12 year old very verbal child. I think i am probably autistic. One of my triggers is the sensory distraction that I feel when my son is stimming around me. I feel like i can't handle it and I want to hide and cry and scream. He makes repetitive noises, or moves repetitively within my vision. How do I support his need to stim without either isolating myself or feeling like my skin is going to crawl off of my body and die?

I'm sorry you're having trouble. Can you describe the noises and what kind of motions and the duration of each? For example, with the noises, would he make the same repetitive noise unceasingly? If not, have you ever timed how long he makes the noise for before stopping? Same thing with the motion. How long does each stim last?

I think our youngest son is on the spectrum, high functioning, for quite a few reasons. he likes to spin in circles when he talks, is very easily distracted by sounds, as I am and some other things. I used to ask him to stop spinning when he's talking. I don't any longer.

I have a problem just like you do with not being able to handle repetitive noises because I can't help but devote virtually all mental energy to focus on the noise, the tapping of a finger, a fork, vocalizations, etc. Our oldest will sometimes talk in a baby voice which is the voice he's given to his favorite stuffed animal. The sound of the voice he makes, like a munchkin helium voice vibrates my ear and goes right through my nervous system and INSTANTLY irritates me. He knows that and thankfully stops when I INSTANTLY ask him to. I tell him he can certainly make that voice all he wants to when I'm not in the same room.

I ask about the duration of your son's stims because even though it bugs you, perhaps by actually timing it you may find it only lasts for a few minutes at a time? I've had to condition myself to repetitive sounds my kids make in order for me to try to be a bit more tolerant. Let the noises go for a bit before I ask them to stop (except the munchkin voice or other sounds that actually hurt my ears like silverware tapping on dishes, two coins rapping together repeatedly close to me, etc.

I also don't know how sensitive to sound you are in general. I'm hyper-sensitive to sound. I have over the ear noise cancelling headsets at home and I absolutely wear them when I'm stressed or it's loud at home. My family is totally accepting of it. Perhaps you may want to purchase something like that for yourself?



Just some thoughts that I hope help you.

OK, a few things.

(1) "Stimming Time is Learning Time." I think people should keep this in mind. Stimming time is the moment of maximum attention in autistic children... but you will need to figure out on your own what exactly to teach your son. When my son was younger, at least I could teach him to read. See, most autistic children become underdeveloped because parents/educators never bother to teach their children during stimming time.

(2) Have you tried YouTube? My son finds out all kinds of videos he likes, from YouTube. Elevators, carnivorous plants, mousetraps, etc.

(3) Introduce him to building-block toys (Mega Bloks, Lego, K'nex, Magna Tiles, etc.) Snap circuits, Lego Mindstorms robotics, etc.

(4) Get blank paper drawing pads for him, so he can draw pictures and write words/sentences/stories.

(5) Twelve years old is a good age to learn about video editing, or game design.

(5) How developed is he? One regular activity I do with my son is I take him out for elevator rides. He then can leverage this interest to develop other skills. For instance, here is my son's second-grade biography project.



Talk to your son about his stimming through pictures. Do picture-aided talk with him. Make it into a cartoon story if you like. Come up with odd and silly analogies and make up stories. You can see some silly ideas from this other video clip



The basic idea is: expand his stimming into other activities/interests/skills. Communicate with him. Show him you are interested in his interests, including stimming, and that you share his passion. Animation video clips are great if you can make them. At the end of the funny video above, I addressed my son's stimming behavior: rolling on grass. Because I did it all in a funny way, I actually taught my son a few things: that a red cross meant "no." That his dad would get annoyed if he rolled on the grass. So, next time when he rolled on the grass, I could always remind him about "Papa says 'no, no, no!'" Magically, he stopped rolling on grass after I showed him the video and reminded him whenever he tried it again. It was not just about getting rid of an undesirable behavior: that was never my primary goal. I used his stimming as an opportunity to teach him other skills (in this case, it included recognizing stick figure drawings, and learning to read. Mind you, back then he was non-verbal.) Because it was funny, he developed interest in reading and in drawing pictures. You want to see what happened a few years later? This is what happened:



He is still a very hyperactive child. But, he can pick up a book, enjoy the book, draw pictures and write down sentences from the book. I just wish other hyperactive autistic children could do that, too. He nowadays has enough activities/interests to keep him busy at home: YouTube, all kinds of building-block projects, reading books, drawing pictures, playing piano keyboard, riding kick-scooter, etc. He keeps himself busy enough, that we don't notice other stimming behaviors. His interests have become his new stimming behaviors. Stimming by reading books? Isn't that wonderful?

The months before I clocked my daughter was autistic her stims were bothering me. Finding out made the irritation go away entirely. Why? Well, because then the noises had purpose to me and I got why they happened and what she was doing and why she needed to do it. Suddenly I found the noises would actually make me smile because a lot of them were happy stims. It is remarkable to me that they could ever have bothered me.

Sorry if that is not super helpful but what I am trying to say is sometimes if you can rationalise and really understand why something happens it doesn't seem as a meaningless irritating grating noise anymore but as something with purpose. That is how I work anyway.

Do you Stim?

Can you try repeating some of the noises your son does to get a feel for how they feel. That might help you understand better why he needs to make those particular noises.

What Jason says above regarding interests becoming or replacing stimming behaviour is an important point. My daughter is allowed a doodle book in class. It might look like she is not concentrating but she is super concentrated whilst doodling. And her art is amazing and ever improving as she is constantly drawing and sketching.

The other thing the occupational therapist said to me that really sunk in is that the best occupational therapy aids are things you do whilst doing something else. It is not just a case of sensory play etc. It is rather that by squeezing a bit of restive clay or by being allowed to work standing or to pace actually heightens concentration and gives the brain the necessary feedback it needs to work at its best. Not having that sensory feedback not only obstructs concentration but allows stress to build up as sensory needs are not met leading to overall detrimental results.