Wisconsin Autism Empowerment

Today in church I watched as a woman clicked a pen randomly.  Another was doing fast eye blinks.  A man was flexing his foot, release, flex, release.  Across the room I could see a man flicking his short hair, flip around finger, flip around finger.  Why? Movement to meet a need, often not even done consciously.

All of these behaviors are self-stimulating behaviors or stims.  We all do them.  Some only do stims when anxious.  Some do stims when bored.  Others when they’re hyper focused.  But these behaviors are part of all human’s wiring. 

All. 

Only one of the people I observed stimming this morning has an ASD label.  The other three are NTs.  Yet people with ASD are told not to stim, to just turn it off without meeting the need it’s fulfilling.  That double standard has caused some difficulties for our ASD folks.  People don’t do it!

Another blatant double standard is a person with an interest in a topic.   They study it, they learn all there is to learn and become an expert.  Experts are admired.  Yet when an ASD person has a focused interest suddenly it’s called an obsession and called problematic.  I know plenty of NTs with rather unique interests, yet no one deems that as a negative.  If an interest brings someone pleasure let them revel in it.  We don’t have to understand it.  We don’t have to share it.  But don’t put anyone down for having a strong focus on one topic, NT or ASD.