Stimming through play???

[genieinabottle]

Hi, i've been wondering for a while now about something.

In the last year since he turned 4 (he will be 5 soon), DS (asd) started making some good progress with speech and language, and his play started developing at the same time.
It still is delayed in comparison to his peers, but we are now seeing some basic role-play and a little more imagination with play than previously, whereas before his play was very concrete or sensory orientated.

Anyway, despite much better playing skills, he still has lots of moments every day where he reverts back to his basic type of play.

Here are some examples of what he does.
He often carries small toys or objects around, and will wander about twirling the object or simply holding it and looking at it, while humming a tune, or doing soft grunts/throat noises while blowing through his nose at the same time (sorry hard to explain but it's the same sort of sounds over and over).

He always has liked carrying and fiddling household things, random stuff like the tin-opener which he will spin the handle, or the wine bottle-opener he likes to turn the moving parts too,... or earlier he had taken the toy umbrella from DD's dolls' house and was spinning it with one finger while wandering around without a specific purpose.
The other day i was trying to get himm to do some creative stuff with PlayDoh but he was only interested in twirling and spinning the playdoh roller and cutter; or he will move his cars and trains back and forth simply to look at the wheels,....

The thing is he is now able to do better much play than that by himself, and especially if an adult guides the play, but when he isn't particularly engaged in anything what i've described above is what he will do.

Do you think it is a form of self-stimulatory behaviour through play?
Anyone noticed similarities with your dc?

Thanks.

Yes. Those things are stimming. Whenever I see it I try to give him something alternative to do, not least because it drives ME mad.

We have some absolute ground rules wrt it though. If he is going to do it, I feel that it should never be without limits of boundaries.

So, we have 'no spinning/flapping at the table', 'wheels on the floor' (to avoid upturned bikes, and cars run up and down the door frames), 'drawing, not flapping with pens', and 'last time humming, then x'

I usually have an alternative behaviour or try to give him something to do that isn't stimming that he likes.

You do have to be a bit careful though, because whilst I like him to be engaged in more appropriate and acceptable play the need to do these things might be something that has to be addressed. You can't take away someone's stress-buster without an alternative stress-buster that he feels acceptable for example.

Also, the context is important. A child developing amazing spinning technique (ds can spin suitcases) might be seen as stimming, whereas a child kicking a ball against the wall for hours at a time could be called football mad. Who are we to dictate our children's interests?

It's just that you do have to keep an eye on what he is missing out on, or not engaging with, and therefore not learning or developing as a result of the repetative stuff.

I'm no authority on this. It is purely my take, and how I apply it to my ds.

Hope it gives you some things to think about so you can figure out what if anything needs to be done for your ds.

Thanks Star.

Yes iswym about mising out on learning or developing while he does these type of things.

Like the instance i described with the PlayDoh, he was well aware that i was trying to get him to do creative things but he wasn't intrested 'coz he wanted to do the spinning with the playdoh cutter.

He is usually able to stop doing the stimming and repetitive stuff if we propose something he enjoys.
But at other times he'll stop but after only a couple of minutes of the other activity he'll start again with the stim.
Some days are definately worse than others.
And some very bad days he'll do it for like 30 mins or longer, stop for bit than start again and he'll keep doing it all through the day.

He is quite bad with it atm, since starting school. He is humming and fiddling with stuff at least 60% of his waking time while he is at home, unless he is on the Wii.
Not good.

what about at school?

Each child is different, but we found ds' stimming increased if a)he was allowed to do it at school and b)if he was anxious at school.

Can you get the EP involved to observe him in school. Tell her you want her to look into the percentage of time he is engaged in functional play and the percentage he is enganged in stimming, non-functional stereotypical play, and then suggest strategies for the school to address this.

Yes, good thinking. I 'll make sure teacher passes a note to EP about that.

She is coming in the week after half-term to observe him.

I'm unsure how much stimming hi does at school, but i know at nursery it used to be frequent. (i often used to pop in for an hour or so to see how he was doing, wish i could do the same at school)

I expect he does a fair bit at school too tbh, but i don't think teacher actually recognises it's stimming.
At carpet time for instance, they now give him a fiddle toy (a squidgy ball) as he keep getting up to get toys to fiddle with and kept touching the other children. Teacher said the fiddle toy has helped as he sit there and only makes his noises as opposed to getting up and wandering.

So i asked her if the noises are similar to what he is doing now (DS was stimming and twirling the bag hook on DD's buggy handle at the time). She said yes.

That's a classroom management technique, not a teaching technique.

Has his learning improved whilst he is doing that, or is he just less disruptive.

Sorry, I know I'm blunt. Not trying to make you anxious, just get to the bottom of it and give you ammo.

I believe whatever is said at carpet time goes straight over his head if he is allowed to stim.

I wish i could show you what i mean as i've done a few home videos of him stimming and me trying to engage him into talking and doing an activity and it's not happening. His ability for interaction drops drastically.

Unless play is guided by an adult ds would spend hours lining up his car making patterns. I think he does this to put some order into his confused world, he finds it calming. The play doh is quite a sensory experience, perhaps your ds was doing something similar to calm himself or block out stimulus?

Personally i think it becomes a problem if that is all he wants to do. Ds will happily leave his cars, most of the time and come and play with me.

In the playground recently EP observed ds just pacing backwards and forwards along the edge of the playground, that did concern me. As i felt it was interfering with the social side of things. But CAMHS and OT disagree with me. CAMHS tell me this is ds's way of dealing with feeling overwhelmed and he should be allowed to do it. OT tells me playtime his time and his chance to do whatever he wants to do to feel relaxed.

So the general opinion of the professionals i know, has been as long as it doesnt interfere with effective learning and he doesnt spend all day doing it, then its not a problem.

Im not entirely convinced as im sure ds would be just as happy to leave the pacing up and down the playground to go and play, if the activity was adult led.

I kind of come from a different opinion, if he's not harming anyone and enjoying it, is there anything wrong with him stimming through play?

I know what you mean by sometimes it looks like play when it's actually stimming (is there any difference to an autistic mind?). BUt i'm really not sure that it is a bad thing.
DS hums (I sometimes find I hum back)
Everything flys
If I build a brio track he goes round and round the same bit (smaller tracks)
For a while He liked repeating the entirity of an episode of "Button moon", if you play the other characters that's often good (role play or stim?). Good bit: now he started to use complete phrases from the shows he likes to express himself e.g. "no way" (disney's lilo and stich)
DP is good at turning stimming into games, licking people has become dinosaurs eating you. gives ds a outlet for showing affection his own way.

Claw I would request they get someone in urgently to do a functional behaviour analysis on your ds' stimming.

If, as you say, he is not doing it for stress reasons but because he needs redirection then this behaviour is not functional and he is losing valuable learning opportunities for interaction, practicing writing, listening skills etc etc etc.

You can't just say that someone needs to do this without knowing why.

I massively kicked off when they did this with ds. They told me he needs to stim because he is anxious and therefore he needs to be allowed to do it for 10mins before intervention.

I told them that he is anxious because he is confused and needs redirection and to allow him to continue in this state for 10 minutes is barbaric. They have now agreed to redirect as soon as they see it, because like for your ds, redirection is pretty easy.

Stark, in school he does it because he is anxious, he also does hand flapping and vocal tic in the class room. He also scratches his skin until he cuts himself, this has been happening about once a month since November.

OT has suggested anxiety medication, CAMHS disagree and they think it can be done through therapy and giving him the appropriate help in school.

When EP joined him in the playground, he just kept repeating "thats my house over there"

Im currently appealing refusal to issue a statement, he feels threatened in school, especially with unstructured social interaction. CAMHS agree with this.

I'd agree with CAMHS about how scary school 'unstructured time' can be. I can't handle it at all, even as a school Governor being out in the playground with the teachers and the children - I have to leave and go find a quiet corner.

I worry about overprescribing of anxiety medication, because it's a bit like suggesting that a drowning child would make less noise about drowning and wave their arms less if they were given anxiety medication. Nope, what they need is for people to rescue them from the water. Stims of that sort are often cries for hel from us, not reasons to stop the stim.

I'm sure anxiety pills are good for some situations, but they are not a solution for a cr*p environment for our children or the wrong teaching environment. They need to get that sorted first, definitely.