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Controlling the stims of a 5 year old suspected Aspie

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Full Steam

The renegade master
V.I.P Member
My oldest girl has had stims since she was born.

She used to stroke and twirl her mums hair, and when she thought she'd lose access, like when she was put down, she would yank a chunk out.

She moved on to her own hair and did the same, she'd yank it out then twirl it around her hand while she sucked her thumb.

Fast forward to today, and I know I'm an Aspie, and she's like my little clone, so very likely also.

She socks her thumb a lot, twists her hair until it turns to dreadlocks, picks her nails until they get infected.

Before we knew about autism, we'd been trying to stop this, but failed. Now I can see we need to replace a stim with a stim, but she doesn't seem interested in anything else.

Has anyone been through similar, or have any ideas?
 
You're right. She needs to replace one stim for another. The problem is is that she needs to understand what stimming is and be able to do research into other ways to stim, which at her age, may prove to be difficult.
 
I don't have any advice for you really. All I can say is get yourself some professional advice, a GP might know something or maybe refer you to someone.
 
If you haven't had her evaluated by an OT with a sensory integration specialty, I highly recommend it (yes, I'm an OT!). They can help you guys figure out what sensations she is seeking, which may lead to some more appropriate substitutes.

As an example, one of the kids I work with is severely cognitively impaired and chews the hell out of his cotton shirt sleeves, to the point they look like swiss cheese. Obviously just telling him no and dressing him in synthetics (like nylon) as was done in the past wasn't actually addressing the issue. It took us a bit, but we determined he was seeking very specific oral input, specifically something that would offer slight resistance on the initial bite, then harder resistance once he bit down fully. We had some trials with different items that offer that sort of input, and the winner turned out to be a Chewlery necklace that looks like the old twisty phone cords (it has that initial minor resistance when you first bite down, then much more when you bite fully, without being rock hard). Another student I saw in the past used to bang his head at every opportunity. Once we figured out a decent communication system for him, it turns out he had headaches; he was banging his head in an attempt to control the pain. In his case OTC pain killers helped a LOT.

Again, figuring out why she's stimming will help you guys figure out what to do to. Good luck!

Alli
 
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