Message from discussion
Autism and Rocking
Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!sa-63-249-100-38.cruzio.COM!not-for-mail
From: sggaB the Slug <ama...@autistics.org>
Newsgroups: alt.support.autism
Subject: Re: Autism and Rocking
Date: 16 Jan 2004 11:24:55 GMT
Lines: 54
Message-ID: <bu8hm6$ekiul$2@ID-197375.news.uni-berlin.de>
References: <a6947dd8.0401151622.7502f33@posting.google.com> <GzNNb.1609$pD3.1127@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk> <bu88st$eslsr$1@ID-169619.news.uni-berlin.de> <AVONb.2311$pD3.1790@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk> <bu8fe8$erhns$1@ID-197375.news.uni-berlin.de> <bu8ghb$f1rnt$1@ID-169619.news.uni-berlin.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: sa-63-249-100-38.cruzio.com (63.249.100.38)
X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1074252295 15354837 63.249.100.38 ([197375])
User-Agent: slrn/0.9.7.4 (Win32)
On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 03:05:13 -0800, Gareeth <Gareethn...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> There's something that is currently classified as "stereotypic
>> movement disorder," in which an otherwise completely NT person
>> involuntarily moves in ways like that that could include rocking (or
>> probably semi-voluntarily would be the better term for it, since many
>> people can stop doing it for short or even long durations, but it
>> comes back when they're not thinking about it).
> A neurologist who has a movement diorder clinic and was speaking at a
> confference I went to ranted about stimming at some length. To his mind all
> stimming was actually sterotypies and people were all idiots for using a
> term that implied any degree of volition and that adults with autism who
> said these sterotypies had any use were full of it basically. Have to love
> the things you learn at conferences (not)
Yecch.
I have heard a few autistic people who are uncomfortable with the term
stimming because most of their stims are involuntary. Personally I don't
see what the problem is even *when* it's involuntary -- I'm not totally
convinced that my involuntary stimming isn't fulfilling some *stimulatory*
function, for one, and second, I just don't see what the big deal is about
calling it stimming. I also can stim more voluntarily.
And I think *both* are probably useful in some way to my body. That was
really obvious yesterday when I went to San Jose to buy a hard drive.
On the way home I'd hit that point of sensory buffer overflow where I
could no longer make any sense of my surroundings whatsoever and was
becoming increasingly uncomfortable and overloaded in some really
fundamental way (basically I could see more things coming at my sensory
comprehension buffer *way* faster than I could *begin* to understand them).
And at that point stimming was the only way I could do something other than
start screaming. Sometimes I even cycle through a bunch of stims in a
situation like that trying to find the one that will be most effective.
Sometimes my body kicks in and provides the proper stim without me thinking
about it (or sometimes even noticing -- I remember once when that happened
hearing my mom say, "Does rocking *help*?" and I hadn't noticed I was
rocking).
This time actually getting my head scritched was sufficient sensory
stimulation to calm down the rest of my system. But other times it's
something like rocking, flapping, hitting my chin, hitting some other
part of my body, or clapping.
I can't imagine why any *real* competent neurologist would want to ignore
evidence like that, but it seems like a common thing to do.
--
If my post disagrees with someone, it doesn't mean I dislike them or want
to attack them. If my post agrees with someone, it doesn't mean I want to
form a social alliance with them. This is neither a war nor a status game
for me. This autism FAQ has more details: http://www.mugsy.org/asa_faq/
|
