I'm trying to understand his stimming with water...

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...not because it annoys me but because it's becoming a safety concern and I want to see if there's a way to draw him away from certain things that may lead to destructive or self-injurious behavior.

With regards to water, he likes to flush toilets repeatedly and run the kitchen sink nonstop. At some point he seems to get overstimulated and will throw something that's not waterproof under the water. I've had to "air out" telephones, remote controls, iPods, etc. Toilets are also a big draw (which is frustrating since he's still only partly potty trained at the age of and I've had to rescue toys that were either about to be flushed or became stuck inside the toilet.

Now I've watched him when he plays with water in the attempt to understand what's causing him to have these compulsions. They seem to be a sign of being overstimulated but I'm wondering if there's another thing in play. Could it be something visual such as reflections within the water? Is it something auditory such as the sound of the water rushing out of the tap or the echo against the walls in what are acoustically active rooms? Or is it a hypnotic thing caused by the fluidic motion of the water over objects beneath it?

The reason I ask is because a few years ago when my son was taking speech therapy at a local children's hospital I had an interesting conversation with a mother of another child who had a similar fixation with the associated hyperactive behaviors. She told me that she went to see an optometrist who claimed that it was triggered by his peripheral vision and prescribed him a special pair of glasses that had prisms around the peripheral areas of his range of vision.

The mother claimed that this brought about a drastic change to his behavior and it got me wondering about my own son's vision. Has anyone here had any similar experiences or diagnoses? If so, what type of specialist would this be? We've long since stopped that speech therapy and I've both fallen out of touch with that mother and lost the doctor's information. That being said I'm interested in getting my son tested for such a visual oversensitivity.

Since my son is nonverbal and hyperactive though it's been hard to get him to attend to any sort of testing but I'm wondering about this nonetheless. I also wonder if the additional sensory sensitivities I've mentioned above would come into play and if I need to take them into account?

What do you guys think? Am I on to something here? As I tried to state before, the reason I want to pursue this is to identify distractions and establish strategies to overcome them. When my son is not distracted he is actually quite high-functioning minus a verbal communication impairment that's unrelated of course.

My little girl loves playing in the sink, I dont like her doing this as you say for safetly issues. She mixes soap and covers her hands with it so it becomes dangerous when shes leaning her full weight on the edge of the sink with soapy hands. She loves running the tap and often wanders off leaving it on and the plug in! Ive never thought of it as a stim before though, thats interesting!

Although I used to be allowed to play in the sink when I was a kid, its different with my daughter as I know it causes problems when I need her to stop and she would just want to do it all day every day wasting loads of water and flooding the place. She simply cant be trusted even if Im watching over her. We let her get messy and play with water when its convenient and she has access to all thigns messy at playgroups and school so I dont feel bad for having the no messy rule at home as we are hardly ever in, she behaves better when we are on the go all day.

Im afraid I dont know anything about the peripheral vision idea but will pop back as it sounds interesting!

There are any number of things that he likes about this, or a combination. He may like the sounds of the water flushing and splashing. He might like how it looks when things are plopped into water. He might be trying to figure out why some things sink and some things float.

I don't know what his receptive language skills are, but maybe if you can set aside a time everyday, when he is closely monitored and supervised, and can do water tasks. Then try to keep him from doing it when you aren't looking. (Hard I know while you are potty training, especially.) Also make sure has has lots of different bath toys, only be used during bath time, so he can stim with it there too, while he is supervised.

My son is almost 4 and he won't get out of the bathtub. He has told me it looks like fireworks when he puts his hand under the faucet and gets it to squirt out all over the place. He won't come out when I tell him to and has scratching, biting, thrashing fits when I eventually resort to dragging him out.

I wouldn't mind him staying in the tub all day, if he'd only not run the water constantly.

I try to remember other tactics, such as giving him time limits and warnings before I turn the water off, but I am forgetful of strategies and tactics.

No personal experience with it, but it sounds like the other mom was talking about vision therapy. There is a specialized type of ophthalmologist who does it, not sure of the name. It's one of those things that a few people swear by but not everyone needs. There are also colored lenses called Irlen lenses that help some people.

I have personal experience with this. When I was little I was absolutely fascinated by water fountains. I'd have stared at the bubbling water for hours if my parents had let me. I remember there was one shopping mall my mom used to take me to that had a lot of these water fountains, and whenever I saw one I'd make my mom stop so I could stare at it.

The best way I can explain it is that seeing the movement of the water had the same effect on me as, say, hearing my favorite music. That's the best comparison I can think of. It was a very calming, satisfying feeling for me. I'd also occasionally get the same feeling from seeing claymation or even some CGI animation and video games. I never played with water the way you describe your son doing, though, and I pretty much outgrew it but not 100%, I still get the feeling from time to time when I see new video games, for example. Also keep in mind that I have no formal diagnosis.

My ASD son also used to stare at water, much more than I ever remember doing. He also used to stare at fans and spinning wheels. This was when he was two. He's four now and does not do this at all anymore. He is not communicative enough yet that I could ask him about it, though.

Thanks for the replies. I've been putting a lot of thought into this and am trying to find ways of letting him play with water under appropriate circumstances. During the summer it's easy because I can set up a sprinkler and kids' pools for him to use in the yard but winters are tough; indoor water attractions are aurally overstimulating for him with all the kids and being in a large, cold room with hard walls and floors and high ceilings.

We're also trying to find ways to positively reinforce him when using the sink or toilet appropriately, though we have to restrict his access to then and have tried to get him to come to us when he needs to go. That's purely for admittance though; we let him close the door while he uses to potty then come in when he asks for help cleaning up. One thing I'd really like to do is have him help clean up after meals, but he's so impulsive that we've had a real hard time as of late establishing any structure. His brother has also been following his lead and making things difficult.

It is important to remember that if you want to stop a detrimental behavior that you need to switch it out, not just demand that it stop. I had a med change and was withdrawing badly -I wanted to hit my head against the wall, but instead I started a crochet project because I liked the rhythm to stitching and the feel of the wool. When I was younger I started drawing to deal with stress and sitting still in a classroom. My teachers thought it was disruptive, so they took it away -so I wound up tearing 4 of my teeth out (on separate occasions) Pain is not necessarily a deterrent when it comes to a stim.

Sometimes when I stim it's about being in communication with everything around me and it just feels good. Perhaps buy some really soft toys or a ball that lights up for your son to play with. They can be for rewards or to calm down meltdowns.

The world around me is so loud and smelly and sometimes I need to escape. I have construction earmuffs that block out sounds that I use while studying in class or for when I just need a break.

The love of water seems pretty popular too, maybe get him in swim lessons.

With regards to indoor ideas for water play on cold days, if you could find out what it is about water he likes, ie the sound or watching it you could get some watery toys that dont involve getting wet. For example my daughter likes snow globes and squidgey gel-filled toys. There may be toys that have water in them and are sealed but you can hear the water swishing and see bubbles. Also have you tried "gloop", get some baking soda and water, mix it up and you get gloop, put a thin layer in a tray and let him loose! Its a really odd substance, it feels liquid but you can pat it and its hard, roll it in your fingers and its rubery, but it dries like powder on the carpet so is easily hoovered up and makes no mess, kids love it, and frankly so do adults its so odd you will play with it for hours!!

Maybe having a special area for water based play could help with keeping it seperate from the bathroom. We have the same problem with our daughter and we worry about her slipping with soapy hands and hitting her head on the sink. She has also completely taken the toilet cystern appart and nearly cracked the tiles by dropping on the lid on the floor! Could have broken her feet aswell as the toilet and tiles!!