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Empathy - The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
SENSORY
Sensory sensitivities is one of, if not the main cause of behaviors identified by a child with an autism spectrum disorder. Typically, the 5 senses are identified as taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight. The more we work with our children on the spectrum, the more we begin to realize that the scope of actual sensory sensitivities as well beyond the basic 5.
WARNING: Loud noises ahead to express audio sensitivities
Visual clutter creates blindness
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Vestibular (balance), Propriaceptive (sense of body position, movement, balance), Cronoception (time perceived, experienced), and Interoception (sensing hunger or need to use the bathroom), just to name a few more.
In Temple Grandin's book 'The Way I See it,' she wrote: Sensory overload can cause either vision or hearing to shut down completely.”
In Tim Pages book 'Parallel Play,' he wrote: “Eventually I realized that I could go to the nurses office if I became overstimulated. The teachers thought this was a ploy for attention but it was, in fact, a survival tactic.”
“Stimming is like breathing… just as natural, just as important.” — Katy K.
1 “Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed, upset or angry, I need to let it out. I feel antsy when I’m overstimulated, so I need to move around and let out some noise. It’s the only way I know how to cope. It calms me down. – Sydney B.
“It’s a comforting thing to do. Neurotypical people probably understand and do similar things, but the difference is that autism stims feel more necessary, and trying to stop them causes unpleasantness for us. It makes me feel uncomfortable when [it] cannot be done.” — Elizabeth A.
“It’s the ability and opportunity to shut out external effects. I can tune into myself, reign in my energy and feel completely wrapped and enveloped in my own bubble of comfort and total relaxation. — Laura S.
Stimming is comforting, and it lets off pressure from good and bad emotions. I don’t necessarily think ‘I need to stim,’ I just do.” — Rachel Mi.
To help a person with ASD be able to cope with sensory overload, they appear to be naturally equipped with an ability to self-calm by stimming.
Self-stimulatory behavior, also known as stimming and self-stimulation, is the repetition of physical movements, sounds, words, or moving objects. Some people believe that stimming is something we all do, like tapping a pencil, biting your nails, or twirling your hair. Almost, but not quite. Because stimming is a diagnostic criteria for ASD, it is recognized as a unique necessity toward coping more so, than a neurotypical person experiences.
WHAT DOES STIMMING FEEL LIKE?
Click and drag the pictures to move them around.
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Sensory Memory Game
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Click a picture to start the game. The object of the game is to collect matching pictures by clicking one right after another.
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