Echolia, Wiggles and More Echolia

One way Son shows stress is stimming. Stimming is when a person does a repetitive behavior over and over again. Like taping a foot or a pencil. But with children on the Autism Spectrum it’s much more obvious. With Son, he recites lines from a song, movie, TV show or commercial over and over (and over and over) again. Or he paces or does laps or spins around the house. Most of the time he doesn’t seem aware of it. But it is his way of telling us that he is out-of-sync or anxious about something. Sometimes he just needs to do this for a few minutes and get it out of his system. Other times he gets stuck and the stimming doesn’t decrease the stress, but he doesn’t mind the stimming either so he keeps doing it (and doing it and doing it). Since the house has gone on the market we’ve noticed a lot of verbal stimming and some wiggling stimming too.

Over on discussingautism.com there is a giveaway from Therapy Shoppe – a set of Self-Calming Cards. They look wonderful! They look perfect! They look easy to use! They look convenient! And I want them! I want them because I’m always looking for new tricks to put in my bag. And I want them because I can use them with my clients too. So, you can’t enter to get them (well, I suppose you could, but I really, really want them!), but you can head over to their website and check out their new catalog. I’m going to.