Hitting or smacking yourself in the head?

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My son has been banging his head off, usually, hard surfaces since he was a baby. He also rubs his head very hard, to the extent that he always has a bald patch just above his forehead and the hair in that area is usually matted. It was the head-banging which started us on the route to a diagnosis of Asperger's although it is actually part of his sensory processing disfunction, not part of the AS as diagnosed under ICD-10.

My son says it makes him feel better and there is no adequate substitute for it. He does it when excited - good or bad excitement.

If you speak to your son about this, then you might like to take on something my son's OT said to me. Instead of saying, "Why do you do x?" instead ask, "Can you tell me how doing x makes you feel?"

Yes, I bump or knock my hand into my head, harder than I should but not dangerous. I seem to do it when in a generally positive state of mind. I don't know why and I usually stop myself.

From what you have said I would suggest that when you reprimand him he is either punishing himself, as other's have said, or he feels somewhat overloaded and out of control when he is told off and this is his way of dealing with it. I know that doesn't really help but you will probably find that finding out why your son is doing this is a crucial and almost unavoidable step in searching for answers to this issue.

For me, though I no longer practice this behaviour, it was a way of venting emotion I had no other real way to process and couldn't contain. I know it was destructive and would have been difficult to watch so I always tried to do it when no one else was around, but at the time I didn't really have another strategy. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this, although disturbing, may be part of his emotional development and may show that he is feeling a strong emotion and doesn't know how to deal with it productively. People on the spectrum do appear to have emotion dials that jump pretty much from nothing to out of control without feeling any of the steps in between so emotion can be quite overwhelming and painful at times.

All that said is may also be a sensory, self-stimulation behaviour, which would probably be more difficult to address.

Thanks everyone....Your input is very helpful. From what I have observed (as usual with my son) is that it is a combination of things that are causing him to do it, which makes it hard to pinpoint and hard to come up with a solution. But just reading the posts helps me to understand and handle it a little better with my son. I hope this doesn't become a problem at school this year as he just started doing it the last couple of weeks of school last year, but has really been doing it alot all summer. I guess we shall soon find out.

well i as a teen have been known to slam parts of myself up against things in frustration. there's a just a pent up energy, just like with my stims, and that's the most immediate way to release it. i once slammed my head against a door in frustration over something very stupid, and I think I may have given myself a concussion, my head hurt for days following. I also once slammed my wrist against a tabletop and gave it a nasty huge bruise on the bottom :/ perhaps you should find other high-physicality outlets for your son. I know he's young, but perhaps there's some sort of toy that would offer him another alternative?

I have done this all my life, when I am really stressed or angry. Still do it to this day. When I had a mental exam a few months ago, the psychologist said that it should be harmless, so yay. I do remember giving myself a bloody nose once, due to a really bad aimed punch. I usually aim for my forehead or the right side of my face.

I do this when I'm feeling really stressed (not too often); it calms me down.

It kinda gives me a toned out feeling, like from the movie Fight Club. =P It makes me calm. I get the same feeling while rocking or headingbanging, which I do a lot. I have read that these actions cause the release of endorphins, hence stress relief.

I used to do this as a kid. Bounce my head off my desk at school and whatnot.

I recall I mostly stopped after I 'rang my bell' pretty good one time. I don't think I concussed myself, but it was enough to convince me it wasn't a good idea to keep smacking my skull.

If I do it these days, it's usually in the nature of a palm to the forehead to express frustration.

Yeah, I used to do this obsessively as a child/ early teens and I was punishing myself and it gave me some relief but also a lot of pain. I'm pretty sure I nearly gave myself a concussion a few times, keep an eye on it incase it gets worse. At the moment it sounds like he isn't hurting himself too badly, just try and get him to do something else when he feels like that e.g. something to squeeze like a small ball, that's what worked for me.

I start doing it when I'm stressed/mad but most of the time doing it makes me realize I did in which case I stop and do something less totally embarrassing.

I often hit my head by accident, never on purpose.

It sure explains an awful lot of my strangeness...

yep i do that, but its more punches mainly because the pain kinda relives the anger in a way and i tend to calm down a bit plus i dont want to punch anything else as if it doesnt hurt me or anything i tend to just keep punching and punching until ive calmed down

Yes, my son (Autism) is 6 and does this. He will be 7 soon. He displays very similarly as your's both in action and verbally. He shows that he is self aware of it but I can also see that he cannot stop himself sometimes. He does try hitting his chest and his thigh to redirect. It seems to have begun in June of this year. The school, ABA, therapeutic babysitters, OT, SLP are all aware of it so we are all keeping tabs on it. There is some indication in some of the research that I have done it could be seizure related but who knows. Every time we take him to the neurologist nothing significant shows on the EEG.

I do gain some insight and understanding from the posts that other ASD folks have placed here and appreciate your input as you can express yourselves more thoroughly and descriptively than my son can as yet. He too is very bright but right now is not quite capable of continuous, natural conversation. It looks like with a lot of intervention he will get there though.

That's something that appears to be a common thing among Asperger's/Autism. There are various degrees of it, and in my case, it's more of just a wince or grimace; stopping short of actually whacking myself. Still looks bizarre though. Regarding your son, (and I'm not an expert), I'd recommend discussing the head hitting with someone qualified. It seems to be something that is hard to stop or control, based on what I've read, but as with most anything else, I am sure there is a way to work on it for the better.

BTW: Admitting to yourself that he could be on the Spectrum, was your most difficult thing to do in this situation... You did it and that was the best thing you could do! I see SO many parents completely denying that any such thing could touch THEIR bloodline, and that's a tragedy when the poor kid is treated as NT, and is being tortured by NT surroundings. You've already opened the door to a much better life for your son and your whole family, in my opinion!

Charles