How to Teach Autistic Children Not to Spin and Flap

It is important to know why autistic children do what they do BEFORE trying to change their behavior. Flapping and spinning are behaviors that are common traits of autistic children, also known as stimming. Flapping and spinning do not hurt the child or anyone else. They may be difficult or frustrating for others to watch, but the behavior is actually soothing for the child. The behavior helps stimulate and comfort the autistic child.

Autistic children will develop behaviors known as stimming, to help them deal with situations that upset them, cause them stress, or frustrate them. It is important that they have a relief to the situation since they are unable to communicate their feelings and they do not know that they can just walk away.

If you take away their outlet, you will need to show them another one. If you try to take away an outlet, without teaching another release, the autistic child will have "meltdowns". Meltdowns will be the only way he or she will know to let everyone else know there is a problem and the meltdown will become the autistic child's new behavior.

Stopping a child from flapping or spinning can be done, but do you really want to? What behavior will the child replace the stimming behavior with? Transfer objects or teaching new behaviors will help with the flapping or spinning. Most importantly, if you want to stop the spinning or flapping, figure out what causes it. If you can find the situation that is producing the behavior and eliminate the situation, then the flapping and spinning will go away.

My child does not spin or flap for a stress relief. His stimming behavior is talking to his fingers or his fingers talking. Talking with his fingers helps him to confront people as well. He will "talk" to people through his fingers. Whether or not the conversation is able to be understood is a different matter. The point is, his stimming behavior allows him to be comfortable approaching some people.

Recently, I asked the school psychologist if I needed to try to get him to stop this behavior. The psychologist's answer was if I did try to make sure he wasn't at school because he did not want to hear the results of the attempt and to make sure my son was in a soft, safe place. The psychologist told me that his stimming behavior could turn into beating his head on the floor or throwing himself around. I let the psychologist know if it wasn't a problem for the school if he did "finger" talking, I wasn't going to discourage it. I am quite happy he does not have a hurtful, harmful stimming behavior.

Before trying to stop a stimming behavior, you may want to change it or try to change the situation. The more comfortable an autistic child is, the less likely you will be to see a stimming behavior.