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Reader Q&A: Is stimming helpful or hurtful?

4/19/2015

1 Comment

 
I recently checked the comments on our blog, and found a question on one of our previous posts, "Stimming Has a Function". 

Basically, the mother was asking about the differing opinions she hears about stimming. Some professionals will say it's a bad thing and will keep her child from learning. Other people (like me in the article) say you should let your child stim. She felt stuck in the middle. She wanted to let her child stim, but she was scared that some day she'd look back and worry that stimming interfered with his learning process. I replied to her, but I thought this was something many of you may benefit from as well. So here's my response:

"Sorry it took me so long to get back to you - I don't get alerts for comments on the website, only on Facebook. I've heard it both ways, too, and it's hard. So what I did was I went on WrongPlanet.net, an online forum for autistic adults and I asked them what they thought about these claims that stimming was bad for them. I'd REALLY recommend you read through their answers: 
http://www.wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=254039

If you don't have time to read, here's the brief summary. They're pretty overwhelmingly in favor of allowing stimming. I particularly liked what Vicky Gleitz, who gave me permission to use her quote, said. "When I stim, happy becomes happier. When I stim, creatively, entire worlds in vivid detail pop into my mind. When I stim, scary goes away [or at least gets smaller] as does confussion. When I stim, I'm fairly sure that my IQ rises significantly. Just thinking about how so many want to inhibit our autisticness I get so angry, Thankfuly, I am able to stim when this happens. And that helps."

I hope this helps!!!!!!! Let me know if you have any more questions!"

What do you guys think? Do you have any concerns or questions about stimming?

-Creigh

1 Comment
Cyndi
6/17/2015 09:25:28 am

I'm an autistic adult and stimming is absolutely vital to maintain homeostasis. I think the suppression of stimming in children is as abusive as preventing a child from using the bathroom or eating. I made a youtube video where I suppressed myself from stimming at a time when I was desperate to stim and described how I felt. I put myself through what children go through every time their stimming is stifled...and it's utterly cruel!

Stimming is so important and I can't function if I can't stim when I need to. I'm also very against ABA therapy that aims at making children indistinguishable from their peers because I think it teaches autistic kids to hate who they are.

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEoW5rfNXM4

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    About Creigh

    I'm a college student who grew up with my Autistic younger sister, Caley. I've got a bachelor's degree in Psychology and I'm currently studying for my Master's in Speech Language Pathology.

    Neither of those, however, have given me an understanding of autism. All of my understanding comes from learning from the many autistic people that I know. As a result, I have a very different outlook on autism than most, and a burning desire to tell the world what I've learned. This blog is one of the many areas in which I attempt to do that.


    *Note, none of these make me a professional, so advice I give is not professional advice.

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