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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Will it still be cute or ok in 5 years? If not you should fix it. [/quote]
Myself and another poster explained that the stim could very well fade. It's not something to 'fix'. He isn't broken.[/quote]

Or it could become a bad habit like biting nails... you choose how to frame it...[/quote]

that’s not actually how stims work. Stims come and go - sometimes it’s flapping, sometimes pacing - and you’re never going to cure a kid with autism out of repetitive behaviors because the underlying impulse is literally necessary for the dx. When a kid gets older, if they are normal IQ/language, then you can teach them at a higher level about stimming and how others perceive them. But 4? no. you focus on the stims that are disruptive or dangerous, but you can’t extinguish the drive to stim. [/quote]

You can’t extinguish “the drive to stim” completely but you absolutely can teach competitive behaviors and reinforce those more heavily than self-stimulatory behavior so the opportunity for it to occur across the day is minimized. So if a kid loves hand flapping then teach them to love riding a bike or jumping rope. The two can’t be done simultaneously. Or teach them to play T-ball, or swing, or rock climbing, or play dough, or crafts, or yoga, or swimming, or a myriad of other things incompatible with hand flapping. You teach new skills and new behaviors that over time decrease the opportunity for the occurrence of hand flapping. You literally keep them busy all day and minimize down time. This way you avoid it getting to the point where all they do is walk around flapping. If you just ignore it and don’t do anything to prevent or minimize it, don’t teach new skills, then you get to the point it’s much harder to intervene. 4 is a perfect age to address this because life is full of new skills. You just have to think strategically about which skills you select next.[/quote]

DP.  I thought it was more like replacing hand flapping with fidgeting with a fidget/pen/something small.  Or replacing pogoing with toe tapping or something else smaller and less obtrusive.  Or, if necessary, for older children, teaching delaying stimming until later/outside/more appropriate.  Not distraction every waking moment.[/quote]

The “distraction at every waking moment” thing is really disturbing. PP must be some kind of poorly trained BCBA working for one of those private equity ABA centers that prey on parents and tell them their kids need 40 hrs of ABA.

Behavioral modification has its place but it’s frankly shocking to describe that level of it for … hand flapping. [/quote]

I said nothing about distraction at every waking moment. I’m talking about a day full of various skill-building activities, some of which compete with naturally occurring self-stimulatory behaviors. The opposite would be ignoring them and letting them “stim” in a corner, which it sounds like you prefer. [/quote]

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