Quiet Hands

Post Reply New Topic

I just read a moving article by Julia Bascom, an adult with autism, and it got me wondering about the phenomenon of "quiet hands". (Sorry for the lack of link - I'm new and can't include URLs in my posts yet.)

I don't have much experience with ABA or therapy, but I do work as a classroom assistant at a school for autistic children. I haven't worked there for very long, but from what I can tell they use "quiet hands" to stop aggressive or possibly invasive behaviors (kids trying to scratch and bite or take food from other kids). Would you consider this to be appropriate, or still bordering on abuse such as using "quiet hands" to stop general stimming behaviors? I feel very passionate about the autistic community, especially as an individual with Asperger's, and I want to do whatever I can to make this school a better place for the kids. I felt absolutely petrified after reading that article and thinking that we may be silencing or even abusing autistic kids who may just be trying to communicate.

You mean this, I believe: Just Stimming… - Quiet Hands

I can't really put my thoughts in words at the moment. It's a complicated topic. In some rare cases stereotyped movements do interfere with available channels of communication and in far less rare cases, repetitive behaviours can lead to self-harm and injury. But yes, just like laughing and smiling, a hug or a pat on the shoulder or even someone pointing at something are tools of communication, so can repetitive behaviours including echolalia and motor mannerisms (as well as routines) be.

But can drawing the line between when to step and interfere (and how to interfere) or to accept or to respond to when someone is expressing their happiness or discomfort be done with confidence?

I have no experience with ABA but I've been hit for stereotypes/repetitive motor mannerisms that did not pose a threat (and were often not directed at other people) but were taken to be "moronic" and to mean I was "manipulative" (=done on purpose to make adults mad) and "aggressive" so, yeah, obviously interpreting what's really going on at a moment can hardly be called simple. It's far too easy to forget that an interpretation could way be off mark when the autistic person getting interpreted can't verbally step in and explain themselves.

Unless the child is putting themself or others in danger I'd say that is abusive.

Also teachers shouldn't be putting their hands on kids at all. If a teacher tried to hold my hands still or in any way touch me I would consider that an assault on myself and defend myself. I once elbowed a teacher that tried to push me somewhere I didn't want to go and kicked a teacher that tried to drag me into the classroom. I'm lucky that was long ago. Now they would probably call the cops and have me arrested for that.

That's the one, thank you Sora. I'll definitely be paying much closer attention whenever a teacher gives the "quiet hands" command. I'm thinking about forwarding the article to our ABA therapist and to our director, but I don't want them to think I'm telling them how to do their jobs, especially since I just started.

hanyo, I'd like to hear more about your thoughts on touching. While I definitely agree that a teacher putting their hands on a child to stop stimming behavior is wrong, I wonder whether it is always wrong to place your hands on an autistic child. The school I work at focuses very hard on teaching fine motor skills to some of the lower-functioning children. As part of this training, it is common for the teacher to sort of "guide" the child through the task, and this sometimes means touching their hands and moving them for them. My impression was that this is to help the child learn how to perform the action, as people on the spectrum aren't always the greatest at being able to imitate others. Certainly some children will be hypersensitive and the tactile stimulation might upset them, but I wonder how the learning would progress if no touching whatsoever were allowed.

Touching is fine if the kid doesn't mind. I just don't like being touched myself.

I also think it's worse to touch to restrain or force than it is to guide to show how to do something, especially if they get permission first.

It feels horrible. It's a form of shaming and restraint all rolled into one. And the way they say it!--it's patronizing. It reminds me of phrases like "good doggy". It completely devalues your experiences as an autistic person and tells you that you are not allowed to control how you move your own body. That's a horrible lesson to teach any child.

Techniques like this are severely emotionally abusive. I can't think of a single instance where it would be appropriate. Even in the case of self-injury, there are better ways than chanting "quiet hands" at someone--preferably, planning ahead of time with the person about how they want you to re-direct a dangerous stim if their own methods for re-directing it fail. And even with self-injury, stopping the self-injury needn't be your first priority unless the resulting injury has the potential to be severe. Scratches and bites are not severe and you don't need to respond to them as though it were an emergency.

Only truly dangerous stims, like head-banging full-force into a concrete wall for example, need anybody to intervene without permission. And even then intervening isn't your first choice. You're better off planning for the even that they'll occur, preventing the need for them, or providing a way to make them safer.

I mostly agree with Hanyo, Sphenapse, and Callista. If someone is hurting themselves and/or others it is necessary to step in to stop it, but force should not be used to stop general non-harmful stimming. People stim to release excess energy and stress, and because to some extent, it provides distraction and comfort. It can also provide a sense barrier to input overload, or the input of unpleasant stuff. Helpers can try to find less weird ways to stim that they can show the person, but force should not be used. The helpers can also guide the hands of spectrum people when trying to teach something, but again, if the student is unwilling to learn that activity, and looks like they are about to stress out, the helpers need to back off. Also, I think trying to get a stimmer to do "quiet hands" is likely to stress us out more.

NTs don't like the "abnormal" stimming activities, because it is not "normal", and they want to make us conform to their norm. They don't understand, and don't care that harmless stimming has benefits for us. They just see that it is not normal, and to them it is absolutely imperative that every one conform to normal as much as possible.

I sometimes find myself twirling utensils or pens or other slim objects. I usually rapidly bounce a knee while sitting, without intending to, it just happens. Other times, while sitting, I will find that I am slowly, but repeatedly moving a foot up and down. People have occasionally commented on it, but none of this hurts anyone, so I see no need to try to force myself to not do these harmless things. Besides any motion at all burns calories, and I need all the help I can get in that department.

I do remember that when I was younger, and on rare occasions was praised for something, the tone of voice in each case was like what one would use on a dog. That's exactly what it felt like, and young as I was, I was aware of it, and deeply resented it. I was never really treated like a human child. If you are not normal, the NTs just don't treat you as a human. Although we are not considered animals, we are treated as a non-human relative of the human family, kind of like we are Neanderthals. This has not changed in my adulthood. In my childhood I was taken to many psych docs and therapists. They didn't help, and they also treated me like a non-human. I avoided them like the plague as an adult, until several years ago. I needed to see a therapist for a while in order to qualify for Medicaid. The state did not consider my other health problems qualified me for it, just my depression, but I was required to get therapy for a while, so I went. It was the same thing all over again. The lady was extremely fake in her concern for me--I could tell by her voice. And it was obvious that I was not really human to her. I did go through with the visits with her until she said I no longer needed the visits, as I seemed to be getting better. Yes I was getting better, but it had nothing to do with her! My living situation had improved from homeless to living in a trailer I rent from my parents, and pay for with gov benefits. I still suffer from chronic lifelong depression, but the improvement in my living circumstances has lessened my stress and depression to levels I can handle now. It also helps that I now live alone. I can't stand living with NTs--we all drive each other crazy.

I resent being treated like a non-human or dog by anyone, and I would resent being forced to stop my harmless stimming. It does provide some benefits. I realize that turning off NTs is a draw back for stimming, but even without stimming I will never be treated as human by the NTs, so I will continue doing what feels best to me.

I used to have this habit of bobbing my knees and my dad used to use force to stop me from doing that and he's say, "Quiet knees. You're making me nervous." I'd just get up, move to another chair where he can't touch me and start bobbing my knees even more, as an act of rebellion.

When I went to elementary school (90's), there was very very little understanding of Austism. I was treated as a problem and an annoyance, even though I had a diagnosis and an IEP. They strongly discouraged my stims and compulsive movements. If I had one in the middle of talking, it would stop me, and the teacher would just skip me and go to the next person, instead of letting me finish the movement (which, if was not interrupted, did not take long). This definitely felt bad. They also yelled at me to "stop doing that" every time I stimmed or did compulsive movements, and the teachers did not stop other kids pushing me when I would start having to stim or do compulsive movements while walking in line, which usually stopped me wherever I was. When they pushed me, it made me have to restart the compulsive movement from the beginning. The teachers did nothing to stop this.

These were all behaviors that did not interrupt - sure, the movement may have been distracting, but I feel it would not be distracting if they didn't put so much attention on it, especially as everyone would be used to me doing these movements that I HAD to do whether they tried making me stop or not. Nothing they ever did, not even one single time, ever, made me skip the movement. So them trying to stop it was completely futile and did nothing but cause me a huge amount of undue pain, embarrassment, uncomfortableness, stress, etc. It also made it a much much bigger distraction and waste of time than it should have been.

It's -THAT- type of interrupting of stimming, in my opinion, that is the bad kind. If it's clear that -ASKING- (not trying to force) them to stop is not causing them discomfort or what not, I see little issue with it.

I think that the forced repressing of harmless stimming is cruel and unusual and should be considered a form of torture. Many autistic people absolutely need to stim. Not stimming feels like being pressed to death to me.

I was in therapy and special education as a kid. I had trouble writing, but the teachers felt like they could tell me to do everything or take advantage of me.

In kindergarten, I was bouncing on my toes and flapping my hands all over the place. The special ed teacher would tap me, causing me to yelp and stim more, and say "Stop stimming." I asked what that meant and she explained. There was another HFA girl that I was friends with and she gave this lecture to the both of us. She couldn't process what she said to her, but when I told her, we both started to panic. She moved away, but we never did listen to that again.

I didn't know what autism was at the time, but this is what I remember. 2 years ago, I was actually taken out of special education and my grades were still the same. Suppressing stimming is a pain worse than the most painful death for me. I still flap whenever I need to.

As a kid , I used to do the hand flapping but don't remember being stopped from doing it until I heated people comment on it when I got older. I then moved on to bouncing my leg up and down, trifling my pens and/or chewing them. I now mostly do the pen twirling when nobody is around. Smoking seems to help alleviate the need to chew my pens. When asked why I chew my pens I just say I didn't ave time for a puff.

If the kid's not doing seriously hurting themselves or, of course hurting anyone else then let them stim away. My hands are really loud, they're not good at being quiet.

'Quieting' anyone is reducing them.

My daughter tries to "quiet" my hands, literally. She says it's making a noise and it's annoying her. I wasn't aware of flicking fingers or making a noise, but she's right, it does make a noise. I don't know how I did not hear it. Sometimes she slaps my hand. My mother used to yell at me to keep my hands still. I guess I am a really annoying finger flicker.

I chatter my teeth excessively and make "unusual" movements, sometimes annoying/freaking out my coworkers. One of the maintenance guys thought I was on Jet
the man who works right by me didn't like how I moved when I placed a part in the lathe (where I was filling in at didn't use a gantry loader), explaining that he disliked "wasted movements." Mind you, I make rate about 98% of the time (more than most other employees, including him), so my compulsive motions do nothing to impede my productivity.
He doesn't get that I must move *that way*. I don't "feel right" if I don't (proprioception-related issue).
I'd love to see him even attempt to make me stop...