ASD - eye flickering, hand flapping, repeating conversations, toe walking

[tacal]

My 4 year old has been doing a lot of the above recently. (He is waiting to be assessed by a multi discipliary clinc so he does not have a diagnosis).

I would really like to hear any advice you have on dealing with the above things. Do you just leave them alone or encourage them not to do it? Ds will be going to school this year so I am thinking I should maybe be encouraging him to stop these things. The eye flickering is happening more frequently now and so is the toe walking and handflapping. He also likes to put one foot on top of the other. He stops walking to do this, takes a few more steps then does it again. He has fallen because of it but seems unable to stop doing it.

Also, he keeps asking me to repeat what I have just said. He often wants us to repeat a conversation we have just had and keep repeating it. How do you deal with this?

Thank you

Those do sound like stims. You may find your DS does them more when he is feeling anxious / stressed / frustrated / tired, so the answer will be to work on the causes once you know what is stressing him, rather than trying to discourage them directly. It may be worth seeing an occupational therapist, either as part of his diagnosis or afterwards, as they can be good it pinning down sensory issues. The repetition thing may just be a stim, or it may be helping with his communication so for the time being go along with it as much as you can bear to!

we were advised to only really worry about anything that can be harmful, ds2 would stand in front of the window staring at the sun for ages looking through his eyelashes so it gave him a flickery sunlight effect, he would do the same at bright lights & were strongly advised not to stop it.
Any other physical stims we were advised to try to replace them with more age appropriate sensory things.
So wr replaced his dummy that he sniffed constantly with elastic bands that he could also fiddle with.
Ultimatelt only a full sensory assessment & therapy has really helped with the sensory behaviours.

thank you Kleinzeit and mymatemax. What you both say makes sense. I have been leaving most of the stims alone but for some reason started to worry I was doing the wrong thing. You have put my mind at rest.

Ds is starting school this year and has attended 3 induction afternoons at his new school and he is also learning songs and dance routines for his nursery graduation. I think these things will be the reason for the increase in stims. They started to appear after the first visit to the school.

Thank you for the link to Autism Support Network Kleinzeit. It has some very useful information.

It should of read we were told to stop the eye stimming, the others we have left or adapted

mymatemax, how did you stop the eye stimming? Did you just encourage him not to or did you replace it with something else? I have found ways of changing some of his stims but I am not sure how to tackle the eye flickering and I would like him to replace the one foot on top of the other stim, so will try to encorage him to do something less obvious.

The eye stimming, we move him away from the windows, give him sunglasses when out. Physio/OT have provided a high backed w/chair to stop him flinging his head back to stare at lights & sun etc, so removing the opportunity rather than making him stop.
Because ds2 has a brain injury and had a few seizure type episodes (but not dx'd as epilepsy) when very young we were told to stop the eye flickering as his paed was concerned about triggering seizures.
For the foot one, are his shoes tight enough? Sorry if i'm stating the obvious but i know ds2 can only toelrate shoes laced up really tightly, i think its a pressure thing.

I had not thought about the pressure thing but ds is always needing big hugs at the moment with lots of pressure. Perhaps he needs his shoes tighter. I would never have thought of that so thank you for the suggestion, mymate.

I thought I saw a couple of absence seizures a month ago but recently it has just been stimming, I think. I really dont know what to think about it all to be honest.

It sounds like you have a good understanding of your ds2's sensory behaviour. I hope I manage to understand it all soon. It is a big worry for me at the moment.

Thank you for all your advice.

Only because he is 10, when he was 4 I was in a similar place to you. We live & learn as they say.