Expert: Trey McGowan - 10/15/2007

Question
Hi, my 10 month old rocks on his hands and knees when happy, he does it alot, he also twirls his hands and feet sometimes, mostly when overly excited,bored or upset.  Do I just let him continue these habits or try to break them?  How do you get a 10 month old to stop something?  Or is it possibly a phase he will gradually outgrow?  Any input would be appreciated...Thanks for your time :)

Answer
Hello there, Erica!

When it comes to stimming, most of the time as long as the motions are not harmful either to the child or to things around them, I don't necessarily see a reason to break these habits. Hand-flapping is a good way not only of getting out some general feelings, but of being an 'emotional barometer' for you, letting you know when things are getting overwhelming and needing to be backed off from or worked on. I'm not going to deny that there won't be other people who will see these gestures and make broad assumptions about your son, but the important thing to me is that stimming, for an autistic child, is just another part of their body language and emotional/mental well-being. Obviously, your mileage may vary. Particularly if you are concerned about general appearances (although I generally preach well-being over appearances).

Obviously, if your son is dropping down on his hands and knees to rock every single time he is happy, that could get to a more troubling level. At 10 months old, I would say he's likely to grow out of it and find other ways, but if he doesn't seem to, then you may want to try and channel that into a more 'upright' stimming behavior. The same goes for if he is bumping his head while he is rocking; try to channel it into something that does not threaten damage to him. If, however, he is only doing it when he's already on the floor and doing something, I don't see it as being a harmful outlet.

You ask whether it's possible that he'll outgrow these. As a matter of fact, stimming behaviors will *often* change as the child matures and ages, particularly depending on how high-functioning they are. It's difficult to tell with a child that's so young, but it may well be that at three years old, he will resolve them into mere hand flapping, or even drop that completely and move to something else, such as rocking in place or 'sewing machine leg'. Some may never grow out of one method or another, on the other hand. If I had to make a call, I would guess that the hands and knees rocking will disappear as he becomes 'more upright', and the hand-twirling will probably linger much longer. Possibly throughout life, as it tends to be a common behavior.

As for stopping a 10 month old from doing something, most of the time, the best thing you can do is work through a very stringent 'BOLO' theory. In other words, you 'be on the look out' for when he is doing the behavior that needs changing, and immediately work on stopping it and/or directing it elsewhere. Also be on the look out for when they are doing *right* and be sure to give them positive attention for doing it. But if you are going to break a habit, be sure that you are consistent with it while he is young. While later on, the reasoning of 'Now is good, but *now* isn't' will start to process, it may not be well-formed, even for the analytical mind of the autistic child, just yet.

So as an example, say you had a son who liked stripping his shirt off at random moments. I know you don't, but it's a good, easy example. If you want it to be OK to take his shirt off at certain times, like at the beach or pool, but he insists on doing it all the time, teach him that it is not OK to take his shirt off unless you say so. Later on, when he matures and learns, you can explain the areas and times it's OK to de-shirt, but until he's processing the 'when and where', you can keep a tighter rein on random de-shirting. In your case, the stimming could be treated the same way.

Hopefully that helped you out some! If there's anything else you'd like to ask, feel free to get back in touch.

Trey