It is typically repetitive movement that is often used to calm or "take a break" Hand flapping, lining up things, something they do over and over and over for seemingly no purpose. Often the behavior enables them to block out the world.

My son's stims are not physical. He really likes to repeat phrases that he has heard from a favorite television show or video game. Sometimes he will use a slightly different voice, inflection, or tone as he is repeating the phrase. He really got stuck on a quote from Bugs Bunny a year or so ago. "Check out that tail. Like cotton candy!" Oh my gosh, it stayed around for weeks and he said it soooo many times in his best Bugs Bunny voice. I think because it made us all laugh and he likes making people laugh. We were all saying it by the end! He also loves to rewind the TV or a video and watch the same portion over and over. I guess because it was not physical, it took me a long time to recognize these things as stimming.

We all have stims. Have you ever seen someone twirling her hair or someone else bouncing his leg during a meeting? These are stim behaviors, but they're socially acceptable. My son stims in a number of ways. He flaps his hands, he flicks his ears, he tousles his hair, he spins...He also stims when watching TV or a DVD. He rewinds and plays over and over again. These are just a few things that he does, but they're the most noticeable. When he goes to bed at night, he rocks in bed for 5 to 25 minutes. We have gotten so used to it that we don't really notice day to day. It seems like I notice when we're around people we don't see often because they look curious. I think stimming is a necessary thing for my son. I know I stim. I only try to give him replacements so that he can feed his need without disrupting others...and those times are only when we need to be quiet like church, a concert, or when my younger child is in bed.

Stimming is any number of repetitive, exclusive behaviors, or verbal words or noises that achieve self-stimulation. Every child who has stims has different ones and some do these more often than others. My son spins plates, makes noises and repetitive sounds, flaps his hands, and jumps. He used to do alot more of them such as kicking walls, slapping the floor over and over etc.... Some things that appear to be stim like are actually OCD obsessions. My son used to check the doors to see if they were really locked every 30 seconds. What makes a behavior a stim is that they do this for their own stimulation, not in a social way to make friends or to accomplish any other productive goal. I think stims are WONDERFUL because they are a window into a child's world giving me a way to connect to them and communicate acceptance and love by joining them in these behaviors.

My son used to say "PIE" in a really boisterous way again and again just because he enjoyed hearing the sound but it wasn't communicative and it wasn't in a conversation, it was just for the lovely sound. My son stims for instance with the Christmas tree which is an OCD obsession too. So he will put his face right up into the lights and make noises, but it's all about how he processes sounds, sights and touch differently than others and so he responds to things in a stimming sort of way. Often, stims are the result of anxiety I have found. My son does them more if he is scared, tired, anxious or in a new environment or having to change his routine, etc... Some children who are Autistic stim almost constantly and others sort of go in and out of them. Others only have them just a little but even a little is a significant sign that a child could be on the spectrum.