Stimming or ism

When we were having dinner just now, J started to have ism or stim. He was using his 2 hands to replicate how 2 lifts will go up and down and then, showing the lift door open and close. As "the lift" went up, he will announce the levels which the lift had reached.



His 2 hands were replicating how 2 lifts will go up and down,
lift door open and close.



Stimming Encounters

During Speech Therapy, halfway through his schedule, J would get off his seat, faced the wall, and then started to stim. He would pretend being the lift and just move his body up and down.

His other stim is verbal stimming. He would script from what he had heard when taking the lift or train.

What is Stimming?

When I first knew of J's condition, I had to do lots of reading. There were overload of information, new vocabulary and new meaning, that it overwhelmed me. The word "stimming" is one of them.

Stimming is a repetitive and self-stimulating behaviour, as what most therapists and psychologists believe, but based on the book Autism Breakthrough by Raun K. Kaufman, stimming is not a behaviour but it helps people in the autism spectrum, calming and self-soothing. It is usually what they can find familiarity in, making them feel safe. You can read more here and there is a video about people with Autism explaining what stimming feels like.

My thoughts

Most often, when I see J stim, I just let him be. Perhaps I would join in and participate in his stimming. There are 2 school of thoughts. Most therapists discourage stimming because they believe that it might encourage the behaviour. There are other groups of parents, like myself, whom we just let the child continue to stim.

In fact, for J, he stim, most of the time, especially verbal stimming and it can happen more often when J is having sensory overloading or when he is in stressful situations. Hence, I felt stimming is a type of coping mechanism for him.


Happy Stimming!