What about the arm-flapping thing?

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I was just wondering if anyone else here has bad arm or hand flaps when they get worked up or excited? Have you ever had to explain it to anybody? Have you had problems with your wrists as a result?

I got nicknamed "Frizzler' in one band I was in because any time I got excited they thought I looked like I was in the electric chair. I can see the humour in that, but it has freaked out housemates and girlfriends no end. When I'm Djing and a particular song is going off with the crowd I get excited and it starts happening but I'm known for jumping around and dancing so everyone just thinks it's an original new move

I have only known that I have AS for the last year, and while I have had many of the symptoms since childhood, the arm-flapping only developed in my 20's. What's anyone else's experience?

I've never had hand-flapping issues so I'm curious what the proper form is. Like, for example, is it more up and down like you're flying or more back and forth like you're getting the vapors. Or maybe its unique to every individual.

I think it's fairly unique to the individual, I've only ever met one diagnosed Aspie in my life - who didn't flap - so I can't compare. Mine tends to be from the forearms down, hands at right angle moving in a semi-circular motion. I've never done it in a mirror but I imagine it looks very camp...

I tend flap my right arm, when I'm really restless, either when I can't sleep or I need something to do.

I 'clap' my thumb to the other four fingers, like a puppet talking.

I used to flap arms when I was little. My brother still does when he gets excited.

I hate it when people flap their arms or hands, I mean it just really, really p*sses me off.
Everytime I see someone doing it if they aren't actually injured or running away (that's a legit excuse, but "I have spasms so I can't help it" is NOT), I just want to slap them in the face and yell at the stupid b*st*rd.
Arm-flapping and hand-flapping aren't signs of being aspie- they're signs of being ret*d.
Enough said.

I was a huge flapper from childhood 'til my teens. I think flapping is the foundation on which some of my self-control has been built. By that, I mean to say that I usually only flapped in private and it was a difficult mind-over-matter thing to make myself stop. Stopping gave me the mental resolve to control other behavior patterns, such as quitting cigarettes.

In flapping, I alway worried about cardio-vascular issues in my arms; centrifugal force engorging the veins in my arms. But, that never really seemed to manifest. Flapping may have actually been physically beneficial; excercising muscles and working joints.

Since reading about it last year, ive really been getting into it!

It feels great & i think it might be helping my carpal-tunnel syndrome.

Sounds like the outdated attitudes ignorant untrained school teachers had not that long ago,keep believing what the person wants,it won't affect the significance of it being part of AS criteria,and certainly won't have any bearing on those of us who do it.

Nothing of the sort, it's an attitude of one who doesn't want to see the balance of the universe shattered by the fact that people around him are behaving inaproppiately and think they can make up lame excuses for it.

I flap my hands when I am excited or happy. I don't tend to realise I'm going to do it until it happens. I often do it at work when I am holding empty cardboard boxes, as if i am trying to fly with the boxes as wings. It probably does make me look like a ret*d, but I'm used to people thinking that anyway.

I had go off and have a good flap after reading that. Then after I took breath and realized what deliberate, contrived, attention-seeking BS it was, I returned.

Yupa, you can expect no lame excuses for my behaviour. Any concern for what you profess to believe would be the true sign of a ret*d.

lol that's a good one.
But let me tell you something- I went through a brief period in my earlier years when I flapped my hands, until eventually, I realized that it was wrong, and that no intelligent human being would be caught doing that without a legitimite reason. You know why? Because no intelligent person I knew did. But I did know some really apalling, stupid people who did the same thing.
So I quit. And you can too.

Last edited by Yupa on 11 Mar 2006, 6:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

hand flapping is for kindergarteners

Well, I decided to do a google, since my son, 11, hand flaps during meltdowns. As a younger child he did it more often, whenever he was unhappy or upset about something, but now it's only during a full-blown episode.
Here's what I got:

Results 1 - 10 of about 32,400 for asperger's hand flapping

No doubt a few of these come from blogs and websites such as this, but more than a few come from a well-documented, well-researched, scientific basis.

Just because not everyone suffers the same issues from their AS (some have good eye contact, some don't, etc) doesn't make one any less valid then the other.