Are these tics?

[Mintypanda]

My son (5) has recently started a thing where he will sort of “freeze” his upper torso muscles into a rigid pose, clenching his fist as he does so and making a humming noise. There’s no pattern to when it occurs other than it tends to be when he is not “busy”. Definitely not when he is anxious or stressed, more so when he’s happy but unoccupied or verging on bored. We’ve suspected ADHD for some time but this is a new development. Does it sound like a tic?

My daughter has tics (a lot) but my son has absent seizures. When he’s doing it can you break him out of it by calling his name?

If things like seizures have been ruled out, it sounds like stimming. Everyone stims to some extent, so it's not an indicator of adhd on its own.

It’s definitely not a seizure as he is fully “with it” and conscious of his surroundings. He does stim by humming, finger sucking, and pacing (often simultaneously) but this looks different as he kind of “holds” an awkward pose for a few seconds. It kind of looks like those old pictures of people with catatonia but only lasts a couple of secs.

For context he’s going through an EHCP process and is really struggling in school.

Could be a tic or a stim. If it’s a stim it’s likely giving him proprioceptive feedback from contracting his muscles.

My son used to make his arms kind of do a rigid clenching thing which was always a stim. He did also have some facial tics (opening his eyes really wide) when he was primary school age.

It’s quite a common age for tics also

Thanks onemore. Can I ask if he is neurodivergent?

Yes he has ASD. Also his tics/stims would always coincide with the end of term coming up. He was pretty chilled but it was always a sign of end of term fatigue.

He’s a teen now and hasn’t had tics for years. Stimming wise he regulates by going on the garden swing for hours and listening to music. He also talks to himself whilst he’s out there. But no obvious stims anymore.

He sounds lovely. That’s great that he finds music so regulating.

We always feel DS leans more ADHD than Autism however the level of stimming has increased so much of late that I am beginning to wonder in relation to ASD.

The humming can be vocal stimming, my son with asd hummed while pacing and eye rolling

It’s just he doesn’t seem to fit the ASD mould in other ways (though I recognise there is enormous variety). He adores pretend play, has no specific interests or sensory aversions, and seeks novelty / excitement rather than routine or sameness. He tries to interact with his peers but his thoughts come out all scrambled so he’ll revert to silliness / toilet humour to try to get a laugh. The stimming is off the scale tho- it’s constant, the only time he doesn’t do it is when he’s engaged in an absorbing activity like play or tablet time.

Another viewpoint given my experience of DS1, who is now in his late teens. As a child, he was hugely imaginative and absolutely loved pretend play, really chatty, nobody ever said anything to us that he may be neurodivergent. He just didn’t fit the ASD mould at all. Had loads of friends, was popular at school, was a really happy kid.

But I’d thought from the age of about 7 or 8 that he may have ASD, but I was alone in this, and he was diagnosed at 13yo. Some family members were absolutely gobsmacked. They didn’t see it and still don’t really.

Our youngest was diagnosed at 3yo with ASD as he was so obviously autistic, but they’re both very different indeed.

Everyone stims to some extent, but not constantly.

If it is a tic or a stim on its own it probably doesn’t mean anything then. My daughter used to have a tic where she would stretch her face by opening her mouth and then click her jaw, it went on for well over a year but the more attention we gave to her about it the more she done it. So we just ignored it and she hasn’t done it in well over 6 years now. The going rigid thing would maybe be worth looking into just in case x

Stimming can be quite prevalent in ADHD as well so it’s not just an indicator of ASD.