Slimming help!

[Stressytummy]

Hi everyone

I have a son who is diagnosed with autism, although he is high functioning.

I'm desperately worried about his unconscious habit that I think must be causing him harm. When his hands are not being kept busy he constantly cracks his knuckles and pulls at his finger joints.

I've tried distracting him and giving him fiddle toys but that only helps for five minutes at a time. He says he can't help it as he doesn't know he is doing it.

As he's high functioning and doesn't cause any trouble at school we have no contact with the overloaded SEN at school or through any other service so I am desperate for advice.

Thank you in advance x

As far as I’m aware the whole cracking your fingers causing any long term damage thing is a myth. However, if he’s doing it constantly throughout the day to stim it probably isn’t great for him.I’ve also heard the cracking can relelease very small amounts of endorphins (no idea if this is true or not) so he might be doing it because he finds it satisfying. I think the best solution is to keep pushing him to play with fidget toys that keep his hands occupied and if you get the opportunity mentioning it to a specialist

My DS also does this. He hasn't got an ASD diagnosis it does have Inattentive ADHD.

I haven't got any advice sorry, just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. He doesn't even know that he's doing it he does it that often.

Thank you so much for your replies. I'm wondering if it is a comfort thing as I've noticed he doesn't do it when we're cuddling up together to watch telly in the evening.

X

Does he have any signs of inattentive ADHD @Stressytummy? As I said my DS does it, what I had realised until recently is that it's a quite common ADHD thing.

No one has ever mentioned the possibility of inattentive ADHD but looking at the list of symptoms they do describe him. Thank you, I will have a look into it there may be some useful advice.

I really appreciate your support ❤️

It was never in my radar until I read a thread from another MNer and it seemed to describe our DS. I read up a bit more on it, showed him a list of symptoms and his response was "that's me isn't it Mum?"

It's taken a while but he finally got a diagnosis last week.