Stimming is another fun word Evangeline and I have added to our vocabulary. Apparently it is more rare than Perseveration. When I looked it up in Websters, it said, “The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary.”
Fortunately, Wikipedia knows everything. The community of “wikiologists” have defined it as “the repetition of physical movements, sounds, or repetitive movement of objects.” Further, “It is considered a way which people with autism calm and stimulate themselves,” with behaviors including hand flapping, rocking, head banging, and repeating noises and words. Matthew has had lots of these, and they take different forms.
When he was just a baby first learning to crawl, he would crawl with the top of his head rubbing on the carpet, apparently because it felt good on his head. Beyond being a little bit adorable and giving him funny hair, he could power a small village with the static electricity he created.
His all-time favorite toys are cars, trucks, and trains. There was a time when he could literally spend hours spinning the wheels of cars, just because he liked how it looked. He still does that to some degree, running Thomas the Train back and forth. Things like vent grates, ceiling tiles, and even rows of threads on a carpet always catch his attention.
By far, the greatest stims Matthew has are vocal. He used to be monotone, and I mean that literally. Once he was speaking and out of curiosity I went to the piano and discovered that he carried normal conversation in the note “D”. I would confirm this periodically, and it was so predictable that if I wanted to, I could tune my guitar by the sound of his voice.
Since then, his range of tones has expanded. He likes speaking with a deep gravel throat until his voice sounds like the cafeteria lunch-room lady who you were certain smoked three packs a day. Then he goes to the opposite vocal range and in a high-pitched squeal, will say, I love my Mickey Mouse!
But more than what his voice feels or sounds like, what brings him the most comfort is the repetition of phrases. When he was just learning to talk, he would start every sentence with, “Oh no...”
Oh no, we’re out of milk
Oh no, it’s time for bed
Oh no, we’re having pancakes for dinner
He has eliminated that, but has added more calming phrases, such as:
I’m sorry, we can’t have pancakes right now
You can have pancakes in 10 minutes
You’re going to get your pokey poke in your right belly
First you have to get your pokey poke, and then you can have pancakes
I can wait patiently for pancakes
These aren’t just phrases he uses often; he says these to a perseverating degree. What is ironic is he doesn’t seem to understand that saying, “I can wait patiently for pancakes,” fifty-two times in a thirty-minute span is not, in fact, waiting patiently.
Vocal stimming is difficult. We’re glad he speaks, even if all he can communicate are his immediate wants and needs. But when you hear the same phrases multiple times over a short duration, it gets to be rather grating on the nerves. We had waited so long for him to learn to talk. Now, when he gets stuck in a vocal rut, we think in our minds, Just shut up about being patient for pancakes or I am going to bash this stove with a pickaxe!
Then on the other hand, he speaks. While we complain about vocal stims, there are plenty of parents of children with disabilities like Matt’s who would give their right arm to hear their kid say Mom. So his vocal stimming gets real old real quick, but they are calming for him, and we don’t take for granted that while the vocal stims can be annoying when he speaks, he speaks.
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