I agree with Essie. Kate is 21 now and still does it when excited. Luke (26) doesn't do the flapping and hooting as much, but then he never did. When my wife or I ask either one to stop, they do. But stopping the behavior once and for all doesn't seem like a battle worth waging. You have to get them to use the toilet and dress independently. Extinguishing flapping has always been a pretty low priority at the Romanczuk house. If the neurologically typical world is uncomfortable with it, it's their problem not Luke or Kate's.

To people who are caught off guard by it, I simply say, "He gets flappy when he is happy." And Smile. :-)

Our son, now 14 w/AS, still flapps his hands and lips when he runs down the hallway in our house.

Arm/Hand flapping is one of the hardest behaviors to extinguish. We have two books by Beth Aune, Behavior Solutions and More Behavior Solutions. They are wonderful guides that present almost every behavior and 3 - 4 possible ways to replace them.

The book suggests 4 solutions
1. teach others around him to ignore the behavior
2. replace the behavior with a sensory acceptable behavior
3. keep his hands busy (fidget toys)
4. anticipate times of stress/excitement and provide sensory/movement activity before

We were able to replace our son's hand flapping by replacing it with finger tapping. This does not work at all times though, as his stress/excitement builds so does the tapping and if it builds enough it becomes flapping again. If we intervene and provide sensory breaks we can avoid it most of the time we just have to be very aware of his finger tapping.

Every time he flapped we would gently move his hands down to his side and allow him to flap at his side. When he independently did this step we began to gentle encourage him to tap his fingers instead of flap his hands. It took us a long time to accomplish this but now he simply taps his fingers at his side. Most of the times people around him don't even realize it is happening.

Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions. I appreciate it. -Tom