Dealing with Self Stimulation (stimming) Tips from a Speech Therapist

Hey, guys, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we're gonna talk about stimming. So stimming is short for self stimulation, okay? And through the years where I'm teaching children on the spectrum, I've seen a lot of stimming, and a lot of people label stimming as a bad thing. But the reality is that we all do it, okay? Me, you, your grandpa, your grandma, your nanny, whoever, they all do it, okay? And it's in a different way. We all seek for some sort of sensory input that calms our minds, right? That helps us regulate our mood and so on, right? So for me, what I do is I shake my leg a lot, okay? And for some people, it might be like scratching, might be like biting their nails, might be like combing the hair or like playing with the hair and so. And so on, okay? And even singing inside of the shower is technically stimming. And why would I say that is? Because what does it serve? Okay? It serves you. It serves you that you want to do it alone and have that sensory input and have that experience, right? Or you're not singing for anyone, you're singing for yourself. So therefore, it is self stimulation to a certain extent. So the main difference between us when we do it and with children is that it's inappropriate, right? It's not accepted. And the mainstream society that, hey, you're not supposed to tiptoe and walk. You're not supposed to bounce about when you are out and about. And the problem with children on the spectrum is that they don't understand that. They don't understand how people look at them and how people view them, and they don't really care. And that's actually a good thing to a certain extent, right? But inappropriate stimming will actually hurt their social lives, right? First of all, it will reduce their communication because they're too busy stimming, okay? And number three, in some instances that I've heard, stimming, such as tiptoeing, actually hurts the structure and causes permanent damage to the structure of the legs, okay? And I don't really know about this a lot. I've only heard about it. So don't take me what I say here as, you know, 100% the truth or whatever. Talk to my expert, talk to a physiotherapist, talk to a doctor who knows about more and more about this. I'm more about, like, intervention and. And teaching communication and regulating behavior. So what our job is is actually to allow them to stimulate themselves, but In a correct way, in a more appropriate way, and people that. And other people can actually accept. And this is actually quite hard. You know, think about it. For me, me shaking my legs, I've been taught not to do that even up to my master's degree, and unconsciously, I don't even know it. So this is the same for autistic children. And especially, you know, when I talk to some more mature autistic children or people, they talk to me. The stimming just happens, right? They didn't plan it, they didn't want it. It just came and they. They automatically did it. And it's the same as me shaking my leg. So I do kind of understand where they're coming from. Obviously mine is a lot more mild and a lot more socially acceptable. But I need to tell you, I was shaking my leg when I was doing my first clinical placements, and that's because I was nervous as hell. So, you know, unconsciously, I forgot to suppress that and therefore it came out. So that's the situation for me. I cannot speak for other autistic people or other speech delay child. Right? As some of the autistic adults tell me, stimming is like a rabbit hole, all right? A rabbit hole that, you know, it's okay to go in for a bit in the appropriate times when. When. When no one's around, when, you know, it's okay, socially speaking. But anything over five minutes is actually quite dangerous because they cannot bring themselves out themselves, okay? If they were to. To be able to do that, you wouldn't see so much stimming. That's the thing. They cannot really regulate behavior themselves. And you have to give them systems to do so. So what you can do is that you can allow them to do it inside of the house and use behavior systems to tell them not to do it outside. And you need to tell them the reasons as well. And I would only work on stimming as far as, you know, as long as they understand why, because this kind of logic, like verbal reasoning. And then I will start to tell them, okay, you know why we don't want to do that is because you know, when you do that, you're not talking to other people. You're not learning, you're not whatever, right? And so it helps them to understand the reason behind. And then therefore, when we tell them to regulate themselves, give them some chances, okay? You have three chances not to do whatever. For me, it might be shaking my legs. Three chances not to shake your legs if you. And ten minutes if you Stop. Three chances. You can have whatever. And this is for more mature people. Okay. And the second thing you can do, which is a better thing, is to find an alternative. Okay. So to an extent, this is kind of. Kind of like an addiction. So this is widely used in society. For instance, if someone wants to get rid of their, like, smoking habits, what do you give them? Nicotine, bubble gum. Right. Or like, give them like those chewy sticks or like a, like a fake cigarette to put inside of their hands, to put on their hands. Right. So give them something socially more acceptable ways of stimming. Okay, what is it? For instance, playing instruments. Okay, that's one. Singing. Okay. Other ways is like a fidget spinner. Those might work now, I'm not sure. You have to try like a stress ball. I've seen working wonders before. Okay. Trampoline. For those who like to bounce around and tiptoe. To some extent, I've seen what worked a lot for like tiptoeing is to use a weight, like a backpack with a lot of stuff inside to push them down, to give them that sense of, you know, not floating around. Okay, so that's, that's been reported to be working, but that's, you know, a symptomatic approach, meaning, oh, your head hurts. I'll give you, like painkillers, right? You want to tiptoe, I'll weigh you down. But not actually actual behavioral modification. Right. Every child is different. You have to try yourself. And you might have watched that movie called Accountant, you know, with Ben Affleck, and then he goes home and has this flashing lights at home and with like, booming sounds and like, hitting himself and stuff to help him with like, self stimulation. Right? I don't know about that. I've never seen that work before. I've never. Like, if you've been to a sensory integration room, one of those really hardcore ones, maybe it does look like that with flashing lights and so on. But I have heard of autistic people who hold off their, like, sensory needs until they get home, and then they can use help themselves out and so on. Right. So with that said, hopefully you understand what to do. Just if I have to conclude in two sentences, it would be, number one, try to teach them why they shouldn't be stimming in appropriate times. Right? Let them identify when it's inappropriate, when it's appropriate, and then give them the chance to do it if the environment allows them to. Number two is to give them a replacement. And that might be any form like drawing, dancing, singing, music, that kind of stuff or using fidget tools, fidget toys, stress balls, and so on. Okay, so that's all for this video. And if you haven't, you should go to agentspeech. Com Checklist to grab a checklist of all the tools and toys, all the resources that we recommend parents to have at home when you're starting therapy. Okay, so that's it. And I hope to see you guys in the next video. Bye.