flapping hands
Beliavsky
flapping hands is a symptom of autism, we don't think he is autistic,
since he does not exhibit other symptoms. We would like the reduce the
frequency of his hand flapping over time. Any suggestions?
Nan
enigma
news:79b17337-1fc5-4f92...@m71g2000hse.googlegr
oups.com:
why do you want him to stop? does it embarrass you?
in a NT child, hand flapping will disappear on it's own, as
long as you don't call attention to it.
be happy yours just flaps his hands. mine spins & runs in
circles.
lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.
Clisby
Is hand-flapping unusual in non-autistic kids? Little kids, that is -
I've seen a few do it, and they clearly aren't autistic. Maybe if I saw
a high-schooler do it I'd think it odd.
Clisby
Donna Metler
"Beliavsky" <beli...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:79b17337-1fc5-4f92...@m71g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
As bright as you've said he is, my guess is that he's just demonstrating
some of the "Overexcitabilities" common in highly gifted individuals.
Psychomotor OEs can cause this sort of thing.
http://www.stephanietolan.com/dabrowskis.htm
for a summary.
It really doesn't seem to be uncommon among intelligent, high energy kids in
general, and seems to largely get outgrown as the kids age, either because
they become aware that other people aren't doing it, that they don't need
it, or (as I believe is the case for my 3 yr old) that often they're
carrying something around in their hands and therefore CAN'T move them as
much.
If someone is suggesting that this is a possible sign of autism (and almost
every parent I know of a highly gifted young child eventually hears that
label suggested by someone), or if you want reassurance, I suggest "The
Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults". Our
developmental pediatrician suggested it after the "A word" was tossed around
by my daughter's MDO director. The developmental Ped could see NO signs of
autism-but a lot of signs of giftedness, and prescribed finding a new child
care arrangement ;).
Stephanie
Let him flap his hands! Why do you want him not to flap his hands? I flap,
my daughter flap, my neice flaps, my other neice flaps. None of us are
autistic. What is the worry?
Sue
news:79b17337-1fc5-4f92...@m71g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
Why?
--
Sue (mom to three girls)
Beliavsky
> Beliavsky <beliav...@aol.com> wrote innews:79b17337-1fc5-4f92...@m71g2000hse.googlegr
> oups.com:
>
> > My 4yr9mo son often flaps his hands when he is excited.
> > Although flapping hands is a symptom of autism, we don't
> > think he is autistic, since he does not exhibit other
> > symptoms. We would like the reduce the frequency of his
> > hand flapping over time. Any suggestions?
>
> why do you want him to stop? does it embarrass you?
> in a NT child, hand flapping will disappear on it's own, as
> long as you don't call attention to it.
> be happy yours just flaps his hands. mine spins & runs in
> circles.
> lee
At his school, a preschool teacher who observed him flapping his hands
suggested to his kindergarten teacher that she tell his mother to get
him tested for Asperger's, based on that one symptom. That sure ruined
his mother's day. Partly we want to reassure ourselves. We also don't
want teachers to think he's autistic if he is not.
Donna Metler
---
Mentioned this above, but this seems to be "gifted child syndrome"-that if a
child is gifted, there MUST be something wrong, and given that autism and
aspergers has been in the news so frequently, invariably it's suggested.
Trust me, based on GT boards, if it hadn't been hand flapping, it would have
been something else (for us, it was that my 2 yr old could care less about
what was going on with the other kids and adults in her infant/toddler
daycare class. At the time, she was seriously working on teaching herself to
read and other kindergarten skills, and we'd pretty much given in and put
away all the baby/toddler toys at home because she wasn't interested in
anything that didn't come with an "over age 3" label).\ The teacher had
gone so far as to do a checklist of symptoms on my daughter-which, if you
read the book it came from, was not recommended for use in children below
the age of 4-5 years old, because most of the symptoms listed were NORMAL
toddler behavior! What was even more humorous was that due to DD's
prematurity and that she'd been late on motor skills, she was being followed
by a developmental pediatrician-someone qualified to DIAGNOSE autism (the
pediatrician's comment was that DD's only real problem was that she was "too
smart for her own good" and suggested that we look for a different child
care arrangement, one more willing to adapt to the individual child).
So, I well know that this sort of statement can rock your world as a
parent-and not in a good way, and that you'd want reassurance and also want
your child seen for his abilities, not scrutinized for signs of a possible
disability. I truly believe that the reason this comes up so often is that a
gifted young child scares many adults, and that by labeling it "Aspergers"
or "High functioning autism" they can feel less threatened.
A book which was very helpful to me is "The Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis
of Gifted Children and Adults". Among other things, it goes through the
standard checklists of symptoms and lists where things can exist due to
giftedness, and suggests at what point a problem might be indicated vs just
"gifted child syndrome".
Sue
> As bright as you've said he is, my guess is that he's just demonstrating
> some of the "Overexcitabilities" common in highly gifted individuals.
> Psychomotor OEs can cause this sort of thing.
>
> http://www.stephanietolan.com/dabrowskis.htm
> for a summary.
Hmm, according to this site, DD3 is a gifted child. Not so sure about that,
but it is weird that they list the things she does.
enigma
news:b049e47e-a7b4-4c6c...@8g2000hsu.googlegrou
ps.com:
> At his school, a preschool teacher who observed him
> flapping his hands suggested to his kindergarten teacher
> that she tell his mother to get him tested for Asperger's,
> based on that one symptom. That sure ruined his mother's
> day. Partly we want to reassure ourselves. We also don't
> want teachers to think he's autistic if he is not.
i would gently suggest to the teacher that one 'symptom' does
not a diagnosis make & that playing psychologist is a bad
habit for teachers, especially for one not working directly
with the child. (IOW, she should mind her own business).
many small children do the hand flapping when excited. they
also seem to do it when they have to go to the bathroom...
most of those kids will outgrow it before grade school.
unless you have other reasons to suspect Asperger's, i'd
ignore it & wait for him to outgrow it.
Cailleach
> Although flapping hands is a symptom of autism, we don't
> think he is autistic, since he does not exhibit other
> symptoms.
And conversely, my son has Asperger's and doesn't flap at all.
> At his school, a preschool teacher who observed him flapping his hands
> suggested to his kindergarten teacher that she tell his mother to get
> him tested for Asperger's, based on that one symptom.
If that was the only reason she said it, then better to put her down
as an idiot. Honestly, you can't change your son to please every
foolish adult he might encounter!
> Partly we want to reassure ourselves.
If you have to teach him not to do it then it isn't truly reassuring
because you'd never know for sure that you weren't just covering up a
problem.
> We also don't want teachers to think he's autistic if he is not.
Sensible teachers will not think such a thing on such flimsy evidence.
Really I wouldn't worry.
Maybe this is a cheeky thing to say but.... I get the impression that
you don't place a high priority on your son's social development
compared to his intellectual development. Thing is, a child who lacks
social development has one of the Big Three for autism/Aspergers
(though the other two signs, which are rigid thinking and
communication problems, would also have to be present). So if the
possibility of autism or Asperger's does become a concern for you or
for your son's teachers (and I don't mean this teacher's silly
remark!), then promoting your son's social development would be a more
productive place to focus your energy than trying to get him to stop
flapping.
All the best,
Cailleach
toto
wrote:
> many small children do the hand flapping when excited. they
>also seem to do it when they have to go to the bathroom...
The operative word is *small.* Actually, while many toddlers do this,
I haven't seen any NT 4 year olds doing the classical autistic hand
flap in any of the schools I have worked in.
--
Dorothy
There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..
The Outer Limits
toto
<cail...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>> We also don't want teachers to think he's autistic if he is not.
>
>Sensible teachers will not think such a thing on such flimsy evidence.
>Really I wouldn't worry.
I agree. However, I would wonder what else they might have observed.
toto
Interesting. I don't know what kind of hand flapping you do, but in
general, the kind of hand flapping I have seen in autistic children
looks very weird when adults do it.
That's not to say that it shouldn't be accepted, but it's not
something seen in NT children after they are around 3 or so.
Anne Rogers
> >http://www.stephanietolan.com/dabrowskis.htm
> > for a summary.
>
> Hmm, according to this site, DD3 is a gifted child. Not so sure about that,
> but it is weird that they list the things she does.
It didn't say that if they exhibit these sensitivities, then they are
gifted, more that if your child is gifted, don't be surprised if they
do exhibit them. It's curious that they mention taking a long time to
grow out of things such as the tooth fairy and santa as other sources
suggest early disbelief of such things as a sign of giftedness.
But don't dismiss that your DD may be gifted, I've noticed in the past
you've had a notion of gifted simply being advanced and fairly
balanced in that advancement, I think you once said that if a child
was academically able to cope with grade acceleration, but not
socially, then they weren't gifted - but whilst there are very many
different definitions of gifted, that doesn't seem to be inline with
any widely accepted definition.
Gifted children don't always get good grades in school, so you don't
necessarily get a nice clear flag that academically they are
performing near the top, hence are gifted. There are a whole host of
reasons why that happens and sometimes we get stuck in the loop that
if the thoughts and ideas are there, but they aren't performing on
paper that it's laziness, carelessness etc and this can become a self
fufilling prophecy.
What can end up happening is with all the conflict and imbalance,
that's in part created by their giftedness and in part caused by
adults not dealing with it well, is that you get a student who's
performing averagely, having behavioural and relationship issues and
is generally unhappy and possibly lots of focus on sorting out
behaviour, making them feel even more frustrated and misunderstood.
There is no magic solution, but recognising the problem is a big step,
simply sorting out academics isn't going to undo the effect of years
of misunderstanding, but it can at least give them the chance to start
believing they are good at something and they can acheive, improving
self esteem and giving much more favourable circumstances for working
on other issues.
Cheers
Anne
Irrational Number
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 18:34:01 +0000 (UTC), enigma <eni...@evil.net>
> wrote:
>
>>many small children do the hand flapping when excited. they
>>also seem to do it when they have to go to the bathroom...
>
> The operative word is *small.* Actually, while many toddlers do this,
> I haven't seen any NT 4 year olds doing the classical autistic hand
> flap in any of the schools I have worked in.
NT flapping is different from autistic flapping.
If the OP's child is not perseverating on his
flapping, or it's not continual flapping, or it's
not flapping that has big movements or slapping
movements associated with it, it's likely typical.
I don't have scientific data, but from what I have
observed, many NT 4yos do flap.
-- Anita --
Irrational Number
> "Beliavsky" <beli...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:79b17337-1fc5-4f92...@m71g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
>>My 4yr9mo son often flaps his hands when he is excited. Although
>>flapping hands is a symptom of autism, we don't think he is autistic,
>>since he does not exhibit other symptoms. We would like the reduce the
>>frequency of his hand flapping over time. Any suggestions?
>
> As bright as you've said he is, my guess is that he's just demonstrating
> some of the "Overexcitabilities" common in highly gifted individuals.
Or he's just flapping because he's a typical,
normal 4yo.
-- Anita --
Sue
> It didn't say that if they exhibit these sensitivities, then they are
> gifted, more that if your child is gifted, don't be surprised if they
> do exhibit them. It's curious that they mention taking a long time to
> grow out of things such as the tooth fairy and santa as other sources
> suggest early disbelief of such things as a sign of giftedness.
Oh I know. I worded it wrong. It was very interesting to me that in the
gifted set of kids, that they exhibit some of those tendencies and DD3 has
just about all of those tendencies.
> But don't dismiss that your DD may be gifted, I've noticed in the past
> you've had a notion of gifted simply being advanced and fairly
> balanced in that advancement, I think you once said that if a child
> was academically able to cope with grade acceleration, but not
> socially, then they weren't gifted - but whilst there are very many
> different definitions of gifted, that doesn't seem to be inline with
> any widely accepted definition.
I understand. I suspect DD3 has some giftedness tendencies, as we do have
some really smart, even genius people on my husband's side. I don't know if
that kind of stuff is inherited or not. DD3 just doesn't apply herself and
hates school, so she does poorly even though she could do it if she tried.
> Gifted children don't always get good grades in school, so you don't
> necessarily get a nice clear flag that academically they are
> performing near the top, hence are gifted. There are a whole host of
> reasons why that happens and sometimes we get stuck in the loop that
> if the thoughts and ideas are there, but they aren't performing on
> paper that it's laziness, carelessness etc and this can become a self
> fufilling prophecy.
That would definitely be DD3.
> What can end up happening is with all the conflict and imbalance,
> that's in part created by their giftedness and in part caused by
> adults not dealing with it well, is that you get a student who's
> performing averagely, having behavioural and relationship issues and
> is generally unhappy and possibly lots of focus on sorting out
> behaviour, making them feel even more frustrated and misunderstood.
> There is no magic solution, but recognising the problem is a big step,
> simply sorting out academics isn't going to undo the effect of years
> of misunderstanding, but it can at least give them the chance to start
> believing they are good at something and they can acheive, improving
> self esteem and giving much more favourable circumstances for working
> on other issues.
Good thoughts and definitely something to look at. I am not sure where to
start with DD3, but things have been going relatively good with our new way
of dealing with things here. We have had some set backs, but I expect that.
As far as school goes, she definitely does not try and seems to get average
to bad grades.
Clisby
I'd have said that, too. I don't know that I've ever seen an autistic
child hand-flapping, so I'm not sure what that looks like. The kind of
hand-flapping that looks ordinary to me is the kind where the kid is
extra-excited, or frustrated, or 6th-grade-girl-silly (like a couple of
my daughter's classmates) - things like that.
Clisby
toto
<nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>many NT 4yos do flap.
But as you say it's different. It's hard to explain without seeing
what the OP is calling hand flapping.
Cailleach
> > >http://www.stephanietolan.com/dabrowskis.htm
> > > for a summary.
> .... if a child
> was academically able to cope with grade acceleration, but not
> socially, then they weren't gifted - but whilst there are very many
> different definitions of gifted, that doesn't seem to be inline with
> any widely accepted definition.
I'd go further than that - I would have thought that a child who was
academically advanced but otherwise undeveloped would have more need
of a specialist program (whether it's called a "gifted" program or
not) than a child who was advanced all round. IMO it's the uneven
profile that causes trouble - they don't fit comfortably anywhere.
Certainly a lot of the "gifted" features on the website read more like
disabilities than gifts. And there's an overlap with autism on some of
them (although there are differences too) so I'm not surprised that
people consider autism when they see these kids, even if that gets
ruled out on deeper investigation.
And at my son's first Aspie social skills group, a still shell-shocked
mother said to me "when we went to the psychologist we thought he was
gifted".
Cailleach
Clisby
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 12:13:44 -0400, "Stephanie" <ha...@noway.net> wrote:
>
>> Beliavsky wrote:
>>> My 4yr9mo son often flaps his hands when he is excited. Although
>>> flapping hands is a symptom of autism, we don't think he is autistic,
>>> since he does not exhibit other symptoms. We would like the reduce the
>>> frequency of his hand flapping over time. Any suggestions?
>>
>> Let him flap his hands! Why do you want him not to flap his hands? I flap,
>> my daughter flap, my neice flaps, my other neice flaps. None of us are
>> autistic. What is the worry?
>>
> Interesting. I don't know what kind of hand flapping you do, but in
> general, the kind of hand flapping I have seen in autistic children
> looks very weird when adults do it.
>
> That's not to say that it shouldn't be accepted, but it's not
> something seen in NT children after they are around 3 or so.
>
>
I found this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yHAp9n9AxXw
However, this child isn't doing anything that looks unusual to me. Of
course, it's a video, and I'm not around the child all day, so maybe
it's something I'd notice if it were my child.
Clisby
toto
The child is under 3 (21 months in fact, so under 2). In the absence
of other symptoms, I would not consider this unusual. Not all
children with autism flap, but those that do often continue it much
longer that NT children do.
This is more flapping. It could be completely appropriate in this
baby, but he's not 3 years old
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LqFkP_kyzQI
Here is a very short clip of someone doing more autistic flapping
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fFUwwJw29p0
Found another one.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Ps9iE8mPqY
That's the kind of flapping my dgs does and he is four. He jumps up
and down while doing it and it usually means he is excited about
something. This little girl is doing it for short periods. She is
only 2.
Clisby
Yes, nothing he's doing with his hands looks odd to me. Of course, if
there were other signs of autism, maybe something about it would
support the diagnosis.
> Here is a very short clip of someone doing more autistic flapping
>
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=fFUwwJw29p0
>
This one is too short - I can't really get an idea of what it looks like.
> Found another one.
>
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Ps9iE8mPqY
>
This one looks pretty ordinary to me. It would seem ordinary to me in a
4-year-old, if he did it just when he was excited or upset. Now, if a
4-year-old was doing it constantly, I'd think it was odd.
Clisby
toto
>> http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Ps9iE8mPqY
>>
>
>This one looks pretty ordinary to me. It would seem ordinary to me in a
>4-year-old, if he did it just when he was excited or upset. Now, if a
>4-year-old was doing it constantly, I'd think it was odd.
>
>Clisby
I've never seen an NT 4 year old flap like this. I have seen them
make some different hand motions, but not this flapping with the
wrists stiff.
Karlisa
"toto" <scar...@wicked.witch> wrote in message
news:661tv3lsdasulil0h...@4ax.com...
This is *exactly* how my son flaps when he watches a video. He's been doing
this since infancy. He's now 5 1/2 years old and he's autistic.
lisa
micksmom
Bala M (Indiaj0nes)
> My 4yr9mo son often flaps his hands when he is excited. Although
> flapping hands is a symptom of autism, we don't think he is autistic,
> since he does not exhibit other symptoms. We would like the reduce the
> frequency of his hand flapping over time. Any suggestions?
This is a very old forum and my son does this ! Although he is smart, no language issue or development issues!
Any thoughts on what is happening now..