Stopping or changing a habit..

[Lynden]

I generally dont stop Logan stimming, or doing his thang, but he's recently developed a rather annoying one. It started off being something he did as a very young tot, he'd take his dummy and run saliva from his mouth up to his nose and down again. We had to get rid of his dummy in February this year because he started to bite through them so for three months he stopped this altogether....then figured out he could do the same with his finger.

 

It serves two purposes I *think*. One is he uses it to zone out in stressful situations - it helps him cope - fab. Two its a self stimuation type thing when he's bored. He's obviously fascinated by how it feels/looks.

 

However, its gone from him just running saliva from his mouth to his nose which I could deal with, to him getting a huge build up of saliva bubbles and running them between his fingers to either watch it drop off, or flick it Its fairly gross, and is resulting in spit being everywhere, and usually over me!!

 

Any ideas on how to try and lessen it??

 

Lynne x

[krystaltps]

Sorry Lynden, no ideas. I've just posted about C's new stim over in general discussion - although methinks C's is perhaps preferable .

C did used to do a similar thing, but going from nose to mouth (and with snot - sorry), never really thought of it as a stim though, but that was long before he was DX. The only thing that fixed it was he scraped all the skin away under his nose and ended up getting impetigo. He didnt like that!

I've never had to stop a stim before, he's always spun, and we've always been ok with it. He did go through a period of growling, and we discouraged it. It didn't last long and he now only growls before meltdown (it's a great warning of impending doom!).

So no advice, but I can sympathise...

[elun1]

<'> Hi Lynne

O has loads of weird and wonderful stims - rocking, flapping and jumping are all part of him and are OK most of the time. However some things e.g. poo smearing are not OK - at home and most definitely out in public it has to be discouraged. However at the moment if he's stopped from doing what he wants in any way at all he is soooo agressive it's getting scary. So again I'm sorry but no advice but I feel for you.

Elun xxx

[shamu]

No help here as James has loads of little stims that you can't break but he does tend to drop them in favour of the next one iyswim. So he's not "talking" to his hands so much now as he's chewing through the sleeves of his t shirt/jumper/coat or screeching I just keep trying to tell myself it will pass.....

Could you give him a fiddle toy that is slippery/slimey that he could handle? It could give him some of the sensory input. Maybe some gooey putty stuff? Dunno if he'd mouth it though.

Will think more for you

Shamu

[Lynden]

He has a few other stims, he rocks and handflaps, and he clicks his fingers, and he loves a little spin to himself but I dont mind any of those at all, I didn't even mind this recent one until it got really gross

 

I might try the slime but I'm not sure if he wouldn't use it if it smelt funny - he probably wont mouth it but he doesn't like touching things if they dont smell right to him!

 

Lynne x

[krystaltps]

There could be different smelling alternatives to slime: play-doh (you can scented play-doh these days), blu-tack (no smell at all there), the shaving foam on the table thing. I'll try to think of some more....

[srarfish]

I have used a small dab of stop and grow and it has worked when I don,t want my son to chew certain things he just looked puzzled and stopped.

[LizK]

The only ways I know of are either letting him do it but at specific times each day but don't know how easy it would be for him to understand or timetable that. The other way seems to replace the stim with a more socially acceptable/safer stim or action that gives him the same emotional or sensory feedback. I can't think specifically of something that could directly replace it off the top of my head. Is there anyone at his school who might hsve any ideas?

 

Lx