About Stimming – About Growth!

Jordan stims a lot. I don’t know if it’s a sensory processing disorder, if it’s institutional autism or ‘regular’ autism… I don’t really know what’s going on, but I know he needs it to remain calm. Keeping his hands wet and chewing on his hands is one of his most constant stims… and it’s my LEAST FAVORITE. YUCKY! A little slobber is ok. A lot of slobber is yucky. Especially if it’s all day and gets old smelling. Yep. Eeeeew. Anyway, Jordan has recently learned how to stop! Now, he can’t do it forever, but he can restrain himself for awhile! I try to watch for when he’s struggling to keep his hands out…. and release him from the no-hands-in-mouth rule before we hit crying.

Look how great he’s doing at NOT putting his hand in his mouth – something that was impossible just a few months ago, ESPECIALLY outside. His stimming decreases when we’re outside too, which is great. (Stimming = self-stimulation For Jordan, that usually looks like chewing on his hands, bumping his chin, rubbing behind his ear, banging his hand on his head, repetitive noise-making, popping his finger joints, or rocking) You can see his hands head for his chin or his head/ear a bit, but he was able to direct his attention at shadows and other sights and sounds…. I love to see him enjoying himself and exploring!

Speaking of exploring, now that he can keep his hands out of his mouth for longer periods of time (he’s probably up to 30 minutes when he’s not stressed out), he can play in the grass! In fact, now that he isn’t obsessed with putting grass in his mouth, he is pretty interested with the texture of grass. He likes the tall dandelion flowers too. Great to see him being my little outside boy. I’ve been looking forward to this! (The only real stimming here is him clicking his teeth together, which is not one of his usual things, but was what he chose to be able to cope.)

Again – something I could never do before – dirt time! You can see him get close to his mouth, but he completely understands he’s not supposed to put things in his mouth (or lick!) and goes for his chin instead. Smart little boy. Now we can go to the beach and set him down a little! (last time, he was on the ground for five minutes and ate sand THE ENTIRE TIME) He still has his limit before he needs to go back to his normal hand-sucking self, but we are pretty excited and proud of him for learning new play and weaning a bit from my least favorite behavior. This time next year, I expect his hands will be mostly dry. I don’t know what we’ll have replaced that behavior with… if he needs some sort of stimulation then we’ll need a replacement… but hopefully he’ll have learned that many more appropriate activities that we can drop at least this one without having to replace it with more rocking or whatever. 🙂

Isn’t our little guy adorable? I think he looks so good in dark browns and oranges. My little cowboy. Oh, and speaking of development, he has been walking so much! This house has a long hall and he will pace up and down it sometimes. It’s awesome! He is getting so fast! He still has the wide-legged walk and he leads with his strong side… but he is getting stronger and stronger. Go Jordan!