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Name: Kristi

[ Original Post ]

I have a three year old daughter. She has had a stim ever since I can remember. Whenever excited, she will crunch her hands and fingers over and over again for a few seconds. She will do this everyday. It gets very intense sometimes, her face will look tight and because of the excitement, a little noise will come out. She is a very loving girl and loves to play with kids. She does have a slight speech delay but this could be an enviornmental issue. She was watched by family members while I worked that baby talked to her all day. My question is, does this stim of hers means she is autistic? I keep reading about stimming online and it always points be to autism. I am very curious now and she is scheduled to see a Dr. but until her appt. I am wondering if I can get any feedback from anyone. Thank you. ↓

Name: Loree | Date: May 24th, 2006 6:10 PM

She could be on the autistic spectrum. It would be worth taking her in for an evaluation because these kids usually seems to respond really well to early intervention and there might be help from your current school district. My son started an early-intervention program at age 3 through our local school district that's made all the difference for us all.

My son also stimms with his hands the way your daughter does. He usually does it when he's happy and excited. His OT person is great, she's taught me a lot about the sensory issues involved with autism. She said these kids stimm in order to give themselves feedback because they don't register their bodies the way we do. There are home treatments that involve body massage and joint compression that can help a lot and believe it or not, a mini-trampline for them to jump on gives a lot of feeback to their brain from the body and can even help speech! It's all related. You can also order small light weights for her hands and put them on her on and off throughout the day. This will also give her some sense of her body she's looking for. Take care, Loree

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