Hand flapping and talking to oneself

[Guest guest]

I might be able to provide some information and help here. My son Conor (6

years old, PDD-NOS) does the same thing when he gets excited. Sometimes

when I get excited I even feel like flapping and talking to myself, but I

usually can resist.

I think that trying to make the person aware of what they are doing is a

good idea. With Conor we started to tease him (in a very friendly way).

Whenever he started to flap, I would immediately go up to him and say

" Clapping NO Flapping " , and then I would tickle him when he started to clap

instead of flap. It works just great. Now that we have replaced flapping

with clapping, and it is just as much fun, Conor doesn't seem so strange.

Everyone in the family plays this game with him. When he is playing his

super exciting gun battle video games and starts to flap, his 8 year old

sister yells, " Conor that is too weird -- Remember, clapping, no flapping " .

This is so much fun for Conor that he will sometimes pretend that he needs

to flap just so we go through this routine with him.

It's the same thing with the talking to himself. It is natural for a kid to

be singing and yelling and talking while he is shooting the bad guys in a

video game. You just want the vocalizations to be socially acceptable.

Conor watches all the Disney movies and now knows all the songs and tunes by

heart. As long as Conor isn't singing gibberish and its in tune, I'm

perfectly happy. I sing along an encourage him.

It is like I tell everyone, Conor is always going to be a bit strange. As

long as he is not any weirder than his daddy, I'm happy with it.

If it gets out of hand, such as in school or if it becomes the object of

teasing by his peers, you will need to work on replacing the weird behaviors

with something a bit more socially acceptable, but I don't suggest trying to

eliminate these behaviors completely.

Remember, when the music starts playing we often start tapping our feet and

humming along. My daughter gets embarrassed and tells me to stop being so

weird, but its difficult to stop!

on 8/3/04 1:45 PM, at wrote:

>>>

>>> Message: 5

>>> Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:08:44 -0000

>>> From: " danandvie " <danandvie@...>

>>> Subject: hand flapping and self-talk

>>>

>>> Hi everyone,

>>> I was hoping that someone might have some insight for me...

>>>

>>> I have an 8 yo son(PDD-NOS) who is going into 2nd grade with support.

>>>

>>> He has been pretty successful in school, but these 2 behaviors are

>>> surfacing as the biggest detriments to his relationships.

>>>

>>> He does not walk around flapping, but with certain visual stimulus,

>>> he flaps like a bird and sometimes even jumps up and down. The

>>> trouble is that they use the computer in the classroom and some of

>>> the activities popular for his age group Worse yet, at arcades or

>> anywhere there is

>>> a video game, he will get right next to the person playing and

>>> flap. I understand that hand flapping is a stereotypic behavior

>>> symptomatic of autism, but I am needing/wanting some more insight

>>> into this. What is this eye-hand connection? He doesn't flap to

>>> sounds or textures...and it isn't to all visual stimulus. I guess

>>> that is the why part of the question. Now, what to do about this?

>>> As he has gotten older, he is able to control it better. If I say

>>> hands down or just move one of his hands down, he will say " Oh,

>>> sorry mommy " and put his hands down for maybe 10-15 seconds, and

>>> then he is back at it again. Even when he stops flapping, his body

>>> is shaking or rocking. It's like he is going to explode because he

>>> has to get it out. My next attempt at intervention was to put a full

>>> length mirror next to the tv while my husband played the Playstation

>>> and see if we can give him more of an awareness of when he is

>>> flapping. Just my newest thought on it. Any input is welcomed.

>>>

>>> I thought I would throw in the self-talk since I have your

>>> attention. ) He will go into these monologues with sounds of

>>> explosions and dialogue that are probably from one of his favorite

>>> movies. He does this when he is bored, wants to avoid doing work,

>>> or sometimes it seems just for fun. The only thing that seems to

>>> stop it is if we start talking about something that is really

>>> reinforcing to him, i.e. So, what do you want for Christmas? or if

>>> something reinforcing is introduced. Of course, we don't like to do

>>> that because we don't want to reinforce this behavior. Any input

>>> here? This is primarily a problem at school and when he prefers to

>>> do this than play with friends.

>>>

>>> I couldn't sleep so here I am typing, so if any of this doesn't make

>>> sense, I will be glad to clarify. Feel free to email me personally

>>> or post to the list.

>>>

>>> Thanks so much!

>>>

>>> Vieven

>>>

>>>

>>>