Stims - Is it an Austistic thing or does everyone do it

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I was talking to someone about this and he said everyone stims. My position is, if everone stims, how come we only notice when ASD folks do it?

This is something I have wondered as well. How come we have a fancy name for it? I never heard of the term "stimming" until I joined this forum. But surely when people bounce their legs, play with their hair, wring their hands, that's stimming? But we don't call it stimming in those cases. We call it a "nervous habit".

Indeed...Perhaps autistic people are more prone to it?

I was told at an autism awareness training session that many people have nervous habits such as bouncing their legs, doodling etc. These tend to be due to nerves or boredom. People are often aware of what they're doing, and choose habits that tend not to be noticed or are deemed acceptable.

As I understand it, in people with autism it becomes more than that - the term stimming is commonly used when it's an involuntary or almost compulsive repetitive movement that's used to relieve stress or anxiety or to calm the person down. It may be something that other people find disruptive and therefore not really 'socially acceptable' eg rocking, pacing, repeating sounds etc.

Maybe people with AS stim because they can and do it at inappropriate moments unconsciously sometimes.
Whereas in NTs this is a nervous habit since their stims aren't unusual and they can control them better?
I'm not really sure.

Just today....I was in a debate in some course...but instead of looking into the other's people's eyes or at least at them while they were talking I was drawing nonsense lines all the time on my sheets of papers. I'm pretty sure I even heard other people giggle, that's when I noticed that this wasn't appropriate.
Or when I was on the bus to some faraway place and had to sit for hours there, I started folding a piece of plastic in the same manner over and over again for almost two hours until I somehow noticed it.....and stopped.

Non-AS people would probably be more aware of certain boundaries.

Most people do stim. Very young children even flap their hands quite regularly.

It's just that with autistics, the stims are particularly noticeable, common, and probably neurologically necessary. Stimming is also common among people with intellectual disabilities, which makes sense because like autistics, they have an atypical developmental path. Maybe the repetitive movement is something that many people find out helps them think and manage sensory input and manage emotion, and since we need the help more than most, we're the least shy about taking advantage of it.

Because the stims we do are unusual like rocking back and forth or hand flapping. But then again autistics can do stims that are normal and it still be autism for them. I think it has to do with how it's done. Like for example, everyone paces. People do it when they are nervous or anxious so they pace and it's socially acceptable, but me when I do it, it drives people crazy they tell me to stop. I am not doing it in situations most people would do it in such as when someone is in the hospital sick or hurt and the person is waiting anxiously to hear the news so they pace around in the waiting room or when they are at someone's house and its a woman they just met so they pace around in there.

I have also noticed students like rocking in their chairs in the middle of class but what about an autistic that does it? Maybe they do it longer while NTs do it when they are bored or goofing off.

Speaking for myself, as a child, mine were very noticeable & quite hyper. Even had my parents tolerated the behavior, which they certainly did not (re: Threats of being institutionalized), it would have exhausted anyone watching it. Even today, my rubber band wrangling tends to be excessive. Its the amount plus the obviousness that differs from the NT version. When I got bored in College, I did doodle. A lot.. LOL But thankfully, I kept my other stims quiet until in my Dorm or at home..

Sincerely,
Matthew

I sometimes notice other students in my class bouncing one of their legs, especially when the lectures get boring. But, if one is to compare me to them, there are clear differences. Whereas they just bounce their legs, I am in constant motion, doing one or more of the following: rocking, bouncing my leg, touching different parts of my body, playing with my hair, changing my position in the chair, doodling on a piece of paper, playing with a pencil, playing with my jewelry. I stim and I am also very fidgety, due to the ADHD... If you saw both me and the other students in my class, you'd notice my movement patterns are different both in frequency and qualitatively...

What I wonder is what would happen if NTs tried to engage voluntarily in the same stimming behaviours that we engage in. What if they tried to rock or to flap their hands the way we do it? Would they get anything out of it? Would they get the pleasurable feeling we get when we rock (as discussed in the other thread on rocking over here)? Or would it have no effects whatsoever on them?

Because they have ASD.

Once you have a diagnosis, 'normal' behavior becomes 'symptomatic'.

THANK YOU. exactly, I am a middle aged person, diagnosed late, and I was certainly not told all my life that I shouldn't "stim".... I was occasionally told to stop fidgeting, stop tapping on that, stop leg bouncing.....

never heard the word 'stim' till after learning about the whole asperger's thing. But I know that only 'stims' which infringe on other people's space is annoying to them, same as it would be to you or me, if THEY were tap.tap.tap.tap.tap'ing with their pencil or whatever....

I think that terms like 'stim' add to the general confusion that I experienced and others who are unfamiliar with anything autism-related experience. By giving a different label to something all humans do at one time or another.... it is easy for people to say "oh, well, I don't have autism because I don't do that STIM thing.... or maybe they'll disbelieve you when you tell them about your mild autism, for the same reason. Everyone fidgets but only autistics "stim

Everyone stims, but not everyone's stimming is necessary to their continued minute-to-minute functioning throughout the day. Unlike people who stim with leg bounces or foot taps or finger drums for minutes at a time due to boredom or anxiety or excitement or pain or other triggers, I stim continuously and conspicuously to be able to breathe without hyperventilating, not feel like I am being pressed to death, and to maintain and/or enhance cognitive functioning for the things that I need and want to do.

I have noticed the same thing in me. When I do something lot of people do or anyone would do, it's because I have Asperger's.

One of the Speech and Language Therapists who diagnosed my son told me that she enjoys a good flap - that she finds it good for dealing with stress and cathartic.

I know non-autistic people who rock when dealing with high stress, it helps them cope.


Blind people also tend to stim, rocking is quite common in them too. Other people who have any sort of abnormal sensory stuff are much more likely to stim in ways closer to spectrumites. I've seen things that suggest that stimming is very related to how we perceive the world differently than NTs tend to.