What Is Stimming? | Autism Video Lecture | Understanding and Treating Autism - Health & Fitness

so what is stimming in a child with an
autism spectrum disorder
well stimming is not quite a medical
word but often parents say that and
describe a certain kind of behavior
which means stimulation and it's like
self stimulating behavior which can be a
lot of the stereotype is that you see in
a child the repetitive hand shaking or
shaking a toy repeatedly and parents
describe this sometimes as an increase
in stemming for example or increase in
this behavior which can be due to
anxiety or a child is overstimulated and
it actually can be a sign our children
can often engage in these behaviors to
calm themselves or when they overexcited
and cannot self-regulate so it's a
matter of seeing where this falls on the
spectrum of behavior and you can do it
with language I mean a lot of parents
call stimming well as echolalia they'll
keep repeating that sound and that's
also verbal stimming and you can have
non verbal stimming which can be
repetitively going around in circles or
closing a door back and forth or the
faucet back and forth and a lot of
stemming behavior is actually body
movements and you can see that with
shaking a part of their body I have
children who want to hold on to a toy or
a string and wanting to shake it
repeatedly and that's also stimming I
want to differentiate that from motor
tics for example where a child can be
blinking or have facial grimacing or can
be smacking their lips or making sounds
these are tics
there could be motor or vocal tics and
these are different from stimulating
behaviors so you need to look at
differentiating stimming stereotypic
behavior which has seen in more in the
autism spectrum to a motor tic that may
be occurring in your child and you need
to get to the root of what is the cause
of the stemming whether it's being done
when the child is by themselves for
example and they go into this kind of
repetitive behavior or they're doing it
because they're overloaded with a
sensory overload for example or a
certain anxiety that's bothering them
or maybe they've had a food that they
weren't tolerant to and you it's a way
of saying that this is not suiting their
body and children who have for example
gluten sensitivity or dairy sensitivity
and if it's been removed from their diet
and then reintroduced at some point you
can parents come back saying oh my god
the stimming behavior increased and that
let me know that something else has
happened with my child or there's been
some kind of infraction so it can be
used as a guide and it's a way of a
child actually communicating to you but
stimming behavior is a commonly used
word and commonly seen in children with
the autism spectrum disorder