AUTISM AND STIMMING
WHAT CAUSES THIS BEHAVIOUR IN AUTISTIC PEOPLE?
Whether you know someone with autism or not, you have seen them stim at least once even if you don’t know what stimming is, and that is what we are talking about today, stimming. Stimming is very common in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Today I will explain the following:
· What is stimming?
· Causes of stimming behaviours in autistic people
· Types of stimming
Before I break these down, let’s first understand what autism is because understanding the autism term will help us understand stimming behaviours. Autism is a complex neurobehavioral condition that includes impairment in social interaction, developmental language, and communication skills, sensory processing combined with rigid, repetitive behaviours.
Now, the bolded words in our definition are the causes of stimming in autistic children and adults. In my previous posts, I talked about autism and sensory processing challenges and how they cause an autistic individual to be anxious and stressed.
I am going to explain how each of these impairments causes stimming behaviours, but first things first:
What the heck is stimming?
According to my dictionary, stimming is any of various repetitive actions such as flapping the hands, fidgeting, wiggling the knees, shining a light into one’s eye, and spinning in a chair, typically performed by people with autism.
There are many different types of stimming behaviours, and even though it is most common in the autism spectrum, it’s not only autistic people who perform these behaviours. Even we neuro-typical beings stim.
Ever seen a person pacing up and down so fast they can make you dizzy? The reason that person paces is because they are nervous, anxious, or angry. That behaviour is called stimming and the reason they do it is because it helps them calm down.
Doing the famous BREATH IN AND OUT technique is stimming because you only do it when you are mad as hell, and you know for sure you’re about to explode. Or you’re experiencing the above-mentioned feelings or emotions. Breathing in and out a couple of times helps you calm down before you can act on whatever’s made you feel like that in the first place.
Others eat or bite their fingers, and this never happens when they are happy or excited, but only when they experience the opposite. But we notice these behaviours more in people with autism because they stim a lot more than we do.
Causes of stimming
Now that you understand what stimming is, that we all stim, and that we only stim when we experience something bad, let’s now look at how social interactions cause stimming in people with autism. Do you remember the definition that autistic people have social interaction impairments?
This means they don’t know how to be in social environments, and not knowing “how to be” makes them nervous, distressed, and anxious and all these feelings then call for a stimming moment.
Remember, people on the spectrum prefer their own environment, and a social environment is most of the time a different environment from the one they are used to because they can’t depend on routine, their “walking or navigating stick” when they are in unfamiliar places and environments.
Then we have another cause, which is communication. Communication is caused by them not understanding spoken language, I spoke about it in my previous post. Autistic people struggle big time with communication especially if they happen to be non-verbal because you can only guess what they are saying, and you don’t always win when you guess, right?
What makes the guessing game difficult to play is that their body gesture doesn’t always mean what they are saying, which results in them being unable to interact. An autistic person can nod a yes when they mean no, they can laugh when they are in distress instead of maybe crying or screaming.
Another cause which I also consider major is sensory processing challenges. Children and adults in the spectrum have serious sensory processing challenges which makes life a little harder for them. In this post, I explained how this sensory processing can be a hurdle for them.
Types of stimming
Now, these factors cause stimming behaviours, but you should also know that there are two types of stimming; I call them good or positive and bad or negative stimming behaviours.
Good or positive stimming behaviours
Flapping hands, twirling, and spinning, amongst other stimming behaviours are what I consider good or positive because they are said to produce endorphins to calm children down. In other words, they act as a stress relief technique. Before a child or individual goes on a bad stim, they start with the good one.
Good stimming behaviour is like an alarm bell where a child or adult is trying to communicate that they are in distress and need help.
Let me make an example with the breath in and out technique: you try it out and when it doesn’t calm you down for whatever reason, the wave of whatever emotion; be it stress, anxiety, or panic rises. From there, they take over and cause a meltdown (aka tantrum).
The image below is my son having good stimming behaviour on top of our deep freezer. As I said, there are many stimming behaviours and I’ve probably seen them all from my son alone.
My son runs around a lot as another form of stimming and you’re probably wondering why he is lying on top of our freezer. Here’s why, after running around, he feels tired and heated, and would want to cool off physically and mentally.
This stimming behaviour of his usually lasts plus or minus ten minutes and if there’s no sound by the time he is done, we exhale a deep sigh of relief. But if he starts making other sounds including screaming, we know a storm is coming. If you look at the image very carefully, you can see that he actually looks peaceful and calm, and it’s what we would pray for — a happy good stimming ending.
So, pay close attention to your child once they start stimming. If the situation is not too extreme, the stimming will stop as they will be in a better space. See stimming as a way to compose yourself after being ruffled up a little by whatever.
Good stimming behaviour is like this breath in and out technique, and when it doesn’t work, the child resorts to bad stimming behaviour.
The bad or negative stimming behaviour
These types of behaviours include running around, screaming, biting, pinching, slapping, and banging of the head. When you see a child or adult perform any of these stimming behaviours, know that shit is about to hit the fan for sure.
The image above (the first image at the top) is of bad or negative stimming behaviour. As you can see, the child is biting his hand and from there, it’s another person’s hand. He’s had his former stimming behaviour and it didn’t work for him, and now he’s resorted to his latter behaviour and this one drive everyone over the walls.
You don’t want to see an autistic child or adult in this stimming behaviour, especially if their autism is severe because severe autism is accompanied by violent and aggressive streaks. When this happens, you need to brace yourself — but that’s if your child is severely autistic and non-verbal.
So, what do you do when your child is having a stim?
It’s easy, remember social interactions, communication, and sensory processing? Yep, you start there. Where are you? Are there many people around, are there loud music or noises, are there strong smells, is the place too crowded that there’s barely space to maneuver without touching, etc.?
All of these are causes of stimming behaviours whether good or bad. After all, this, make sure to remove your child or loved one from that space to a better one.
What to do when a child is having a stim? Let them be or stop them?
My advice, as a parent of an autistic child, say if it’s a good stim, then let the child be. But if it’s a bad stim, you can stop them by doing the following: have them lie down and rub their back, massage their head, or give them something to squeeze. And lastly, give them music and put it on a high volume (not too loud to damage their eardrums) but loud enough to counter other sounds and noises.
