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Stimming is like a diabetic getting insulin...after a while it will stop because they are regulated. It is bringing them back to a more regular mode. - for those of you insulin dependent only using this as an analogy to show that stimming is regulatory and also gives the body a physical response that helps its system for a while before needing to stim again.


Autistic people do several things, and are set off by several things as well. Some of the things they do, and why listed below.

1. Stim w/their voice... Autistic people have used this mechanism since autism was first noticed. The scientific background on voice stimming, is this:

Stimming, most the time with the Nnnnnn.... sound actually vibrates the persons inner ear drum, which help promote balance, and triggers specific brain waves to help relax and balance all bodily symptoms. Autistics have problems with balance and hightened awarness, therefore use this method. Autistic people do not have to learn these things, their body is pre-dispositioned to use these scientific methods.

2. Rocking.... This stretches and pinpoints specific joint muscles in your back that ‘manipulate’ when the back moves forward, causing sensation throughout the body so the person can feel their body which in autism does not work correctly all the time, but rocking promotes the pinching of the those "feel" and "grounding" in their bodies. Another pre-disposition in an Autistic person's body.

3. Hand flapping/finger flicking.... This happens much of the time so that the inner parts of the eyes that connect to nerves in the brain are able to be stimulated so that the autistic person can see things as they are supposed to be praportioned, hence when Autistic people have said things just looked strange, or they were so excited it was like their mind was racing and it was too much to take in...compensating for the overload.

4. Thanks Alicia for reminding me to add this stim! :) Peripheral vision stimming.... Its giving a balance between just seeing a small part of the object or world, which is less stimulating but gives a ton of input and then gradually seeing the whole thing...Its like watching a train really up close.

Peripheral vision in the movie theatre

Our human eyes see every square part of a scene on a huge movie theatre drop screen, just neuro-typicals don't know it...(There was even a study also linked similarly about the theatres using the unconcious/unvisual to the eye process of the human brain to create profit) but an autistic person, sometimes see's these parts in the screen and sometimes don't but the brain does, so its very overstimulating having to see the parts go together... It can actually make a person on the spectrum dizzy in a way, SOMETIMEs, but the brain is still affected as well as the eyes at certain times. Plus the flickering, so looking from the peripheral allows those things to sort of disappear...

You should let them do it as it is correcting the sensory in the visual field through the back of the brain...Its regulation that should be done...However, don't let it go tooooo long, like more than a couple of minutes or so because then it can do the opposite effect of what its supposed to do. However, if after a few minutes of re-directing, if a meltdown is occurring it is because the regulation was not completed.

The adorable girl in this video you'll notice has some of these stims:



But another circumstance can't set them off.... Can it??

YES, an autistic person is set off easily, most of the time. One of my special ed teachers said, "Don't sit those three next to each other....they will set each other off".

If another person is screaming or crying, the autistic person can be set off, because it is their flight/fight reaction, in everyones body, too high in the autistic person's system. It is normal all the time to see that when another infant starts to cry, your infant will start to cry. The system and self-concept is not yet balanced in their bodys, as well as autistic people's bodies. They believe that another person's phobia and worry, must be logical and therefore they need to "be scared" too, at least that is what their system tells them.