Hand flapping

[Mike_GX101]

I think there used to be a saying that if one didn't hand-flap then one couldn't possibly have asperger's.

 

No idea where this saying came from but I don't believe it now having seen that very few of those on the spectrum actually do it. But what I want to know is whether hand-flapping is limited to just those on the autistic spectrum and if so what actually might cause it?!?

Edited September 1, 2012 by Mike_GX101

[A-S warrior]

dude, some of these topics your digging up are back form before jesus was born.

[Mike_GX101]

An old topic is still a topic. And on this forum there are way more old topics than there are new ones so what's the problem? I'm all for recycling!!

[rufusrufus]

I think there used to be a saying that if one didn't hand-flap then one couldn't possibly have asperger's.

 

No idea where this saying came from but I don't believe it now having seen that very few of those on the spectrum actually do it. But what I want to know is whether hand-flapping is limited to just those on the autistic spectrum and if so what actually might cause it?!?

 

I've never heard that saying, but I used to work in a school for children with special needs and there were a fair few on the spectrum who did this, or other movements, like waving a sheet of paper, or a piece of cloth, or a bag in front of their faces. I can't remember where I read these, but 2 theories spring to mind relating to this.

The first is that the world is so overwhelming and overstimulating, that the flapping hand, or whatever, acts as a filter, or a distraction. The mind / eye can focus on that, whilst taking in the rest of the world through peripheral vision, without full focus, which reduces how over-stimulating it is. Someone (might have been Phoebe Caldwell) used the example of a child who would hold a toy car up to his eye and view the world through the windows, as though the "frame" of the car gave a bit more control of what he viewed. Does that make sense?

The second theory is a sensory integration perspective - the example I read was about walking on tiptoes, so I'll use that - in NT people, the brain gets enough information about where they are in space, orientation etc, from the sensations of the feet, leg muscles, ears (for balance) in relation to the ground. Their muscles tell them that they are standing upright, on a level piece of ground, with straight legs etc, whereas the autistic brain doesn't always process all that info in the same way. So for the brain to get enough information from the feet, a person with autism might need to focus all the sensory pressure on the balls of their feet (i.e. walk on tiptoes), so the relevant muscles are triggered and the message gets to the brain. I keep re-reading this and really have no idea whether it makes sense outside of my own head!! Anyway, I was going to say that maybe the hand-flapping is a similar thing to walking on tiptoe - the nerve endings in the hands / arms aren't stimulated enough by still air surrounding the body to get that information, but the sensation of the movement of air might trigger those sensory messages to the brain? Or maybe it's a comfort thing? A ritualised movement?

 

dude, some of these topics your digging up are back form before jesus was born.

 

Hahaha this made me chuckle

[Lyndalou]

I must admit, reading some of the comments in this very long thread made me feel a bit sad and a little angry too.

 

What Ruth has written makes sense to me and it is similar to an explanation I read in a book recently which put forward the view that 'stimulating behaviour' or stims were a way to rebalance the nervous system.

 

My son flaps when he is excited, he often walks on the balls of his feet, he waves his hands over his eyes and looks through his fingers, he hums and harmonises to tunes he hears and echoes noises. He loves swinging and spinning and bouncing just like I did so we have a trampoline and swings and when he wants to have a spin or a 'round and round' we have a little spin around in the kitchen. Why on earth would I stop him doing something that makes him feel happy, lowers his anxiety levels and sometimes is a good way just to have fun?

 

I find I flap when I don't think people are listening to me or taking me seriously, I still walk on the balls of my feet when I'm walking on a cold floor as I don't like the feel of the cold on my heels and it also means that I can bounce. I find it very difficult to relax and even when I sit I still have to be doing something else so I bounce my feet from the ankles or fidget a lot. I think some of these things are an energy release. I find I do certain movements like swaying when I'm in a queue and also a kind of half spin from the hips. I don't know if people find this strange and to be frank I don't really care. I can curb these behaviours or in public I can do it in a less obvious manner...like humming repetitive phrases quietly under my breath when I'm doing the trolley dodgems in Tesco. However, I've been known to do huge 'Whoop whoops' when I'm excited or happy although other people tend to be making noise at the same time!

 

I don't suck on my hair anymore like I did when I was a child - I think my mum talking about surgery to extract furballs put me off. I don't bite my nails to the quick, pick at scabs until I bleed or constantly lick my lips like I used to but I do still chew my gums which my son has started doing too. I know this looks a bit odd as my mum does this when she's on edge!

 

I suppose the main criteria I use for deciding if a behaviour is destructive or helpful is will it hurt my son or will it hurt someone else. In time this will include whether or not people will cause him harm if he acts in ways deemed 'inappropriate' but I personally think that it is someone else's problem if he is clearly happy or upset but they can only measure his delight or his difficulties in strictly 'normal' terms. This is a rolling decision-making process.

 

There are so many behaviours that I have that I always assumed were 'normal', that I was never stopped doing (obviously, I was told off and discouraged from doing some of the above things) but I think in many ways this has been very good for me. Normally when I was young there was just a chuckle and the comment 'That's just Lynda' so as long as my boy is happy and continues to be a kind and polite human being, I'll not give a monkeys if he happens to 'flap' a little bit!

[rufusrufus]

Oh, I didn't go back and read the whole thread, I just started blabbering on (I do that a lot!). I'm glad that something I said makes sense though - wahoo! My most pervasive stim is spelling out words as if I'm typing / texting with my fingertips or my toes. It tends to be a word I've picked up from a conversation, although it's not necessarily an important word from the sentence - it's just as likely to be "the" or "and" as "anti-disestablishmentarianism" If / when I become aware that I'm doing it, I try to stop myself, but a minute later I'll realise that my toes have just picked up the baton and are doing it instead! And often when I try to stop my toes AND my fingers doing it, my arm / leg muscles will contract / relax as if they're joining in too. It does seem to act as a dispersal of nervous energy, but it's incredibly draining, and I don't feel in control of it at all. I can be lying in bed absolutely exhausted and I'll "select" a word from my internal dialogue and off I go... so it doesn't even matter if there's an actual conversation going on or not! Argh! I think it actually came from an earlier stim, as when I was a child, whilst travelling in a car, I'd press my fingertip down when we travelled alongside a hedge / wall / fence, and "jumped" any gaps, then pressed down again when I "landed" on the next item. I'd also do it with lines in the road, pavements dipping and then rising, traffic (making fingertips "hop" from one car to another). I don't think I do it when I'm driving, myself, though. I'd like to feel a bit more in control of it, but I guess I'm lucky in some respects that it's not as obvious as hand-flapping or rocking as I've been able to hold down jobs etc. Having said that, if it had been more obvious, maybe I would have got a diagnosis sooner!

[Cr4ckp0t]

I'm 33 and I flap my hands when I get upset and anxious and people think im behaving like a small child but I can't stop it.

 

I know people have always tried to stop my rocking and flicking my fingers and shaking my legs but the more they do the less I can. As an adult I can articulate now that this is what I do when I'm distressed and I do it to block everyone and the distress out and go into hyper focus on something - anything other than the noise/feel/light that may be upsetting me. When I'm focused it subsides but some days it can be near constant as I bob from one irritation to another depending on the environment I'm in

[Mike_GX101]

Interesting thing I noticed when watching a documentary about tourettes: there was a scene depicting a waiting room for a group session and one thing I noticed (something the documentary didn't even pick up on) was that as the people with tourettes came together their tics actually seemed to intensify which didn't happen when they were introduced to those without tourettes.

 

Something similar happens when groups of people are sat in waiting rooms and one person yawns - one can guarantee someone else will yawn and then another and another...this has been shown to be a form of communication which goes something like this: "I trust you enough to want to sleep in your company" the first yawner says non-verbally as he's yawning. In response someone else yawns unconsciously saying "yes - I do too" and so others yawn and they're all agreeing. Yawning is indicative of trust when done in a group. The same unconscious language is spoken with pets too - have you ever noticed your cat/dog yawns in your company? You might think they're saying "I'm bored" but what they're actually saying is "I like you"/"I trust you".

 

If the tics of those with tourettes get more pronounced with other people with tourettes then perhaps the tics are used as body language? And that perhaps, given that some people with tourettes can also be on the autistic spectrum - I was wondering if maybe hand flapping also intensified when in the presence of others who also hand-flapped as if it were some kind of communication (as in something like unconscious waving/hand signalling)?

 

Just a thought.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Mike_GX101

[rufusrufus]

 

If those with tourettes get more pronounced with other people with tourettes then perhaps the tics are a form of some kind of body language? And that perhaps, given that some people with tourettes can also be on the autistic spectrum - I was wondering if maybe hand flapping also intensified when in the presence of others who also hand-flapped as if it were some kind of communication (as in something like unconscious waving/hand signalling)?

 

Just a thought.

 

I think that's really interesting. I have a friend whose son is on the spectrum, and a few years ago she had to decide whether or not to take him out of mainstream school, where he wasn't thriving, and place him in an SEN school. One of her concerns, which was echoed by other people I've spoken to, was that, being around NT kids, hopefully he's "learn" their "appropriate" behaviours, and that potentially, being in an SEN school would expose him to a lot of new "autistic" behaviours, eg more stimming (NB - these are not necessarily my thoughts, just what I remember from the discussion at the time). As it happens, he did go into an SEN school and has really thrived there. I believe that at first, his visible stims etc did increase when he moved, but as he began to feel more relaxed and less ashamed of his autism, as he had felt at the mainstream school, this settled down.

At the SEN school I used to work at, there was a child there with autism who really did pick up on everything the other children were doing. He would mimic them, not maliciously I don't think, and they thought he was taking the mick. I think he felt a compulsion to copy what he saw, before he even realised what he was doing. I know I do this if I hear certain noises, or sometimes when dogs bark, the imitation is out of my mouth before I can stop it!

Certainly, Intensive Interaction works under the assumption that "joining" with a behaviour (stimming, rocking etc) lets the person you're working with know that you feel what they're doing, you respect it enough to engage in it with them / alongside them. Then, once you're engaged, you can create a dialogue using that behaviour / action.

[Mannify]

he did go into an SEN school and has really thrived there. I believe that at first, his visible stims etc did increase when he moved, but as he began to feel more relaxed and less ashamed of his autism, as he had felt at the mainstream school, this settled down.

Yes, that was what we experienced with our son. Initially he did take on some behaviors, but now that he's so much more comfortable in his environment and feels allowed to just be himself, his autistic behavior has subsided substantially in school. It's edifying because instead of pure behavior management, his teachers are now able to concentrate on educating him. He still flaps his hands when he's excited or overjoyed, and part of me would miss it if it ever disappeared entirely.

[Sally44]

I think that there can be more than one reason for repetitive behaviours, whether they are physical or vocal.

 

Sometimes it can be something they enjoy.

Sometimes it may help with the sensory system.

Sometimes it is something that is done or vocalised as a way of trying to drown out other sensory information.

Sometimes it is part of another disorder such as tourettes or OCD and is not enjoyable at all.

 

So in two instances it maybe pleasurable, in the other two it most definately is not.

 

The problem then arises when outsiders see these behaviours and always assume it is something enjoyable or that the person should be just left to do their 'autistic thing', when actually with help or modification of the environment the person may not need to resort to those behaviours.

 

For example my own son his behaviours are often due to anxiety, to overload, as a way of occupying his mind/body when he is in a situation he does not understand or does not understand what is expected of him.