 rocking, hand flapping, eye flickering, spinning, bouncing, making noises, watching movies, dancing, self stimulation. Autistic stimming is loosely defined as a stereotypically autistic repetitive verbalization or movement that has the purpose to self-regulate. It's clear to me that the concept of stimming is gradually becoming a lot more watered down and expansive, far beyond what psychologists initially characterized as autistic stimming. Today we're going to have a look at why exactly this expansion has happened, whether it's a good or a bad thing and try to understand why this expansion, why this watering down of the term stimming has occurred. The normalization of stimming. What do I mean? From my time as part of the autistic community, it's very clear that a lot of individuals within that community tend to do a lot of work reframing language and concepts, particularly when speaking about medical deficit-based language, changing things into a more neutral space, removing the value judgments that we place on particular autistic behaviors, and in this case, autistic stimming. Some of these new things that people regard as stims may fit all the appropriate categories, something being repetitive, something being self-regulatory and meeting someone's sensory needs, but they're not necessarily stereotypically autistic behaviors, stereotypical autistic stims. A great example of this is the act of trampolining. Sure, not really something that is characterized in terms of stimming, but bouncing is an autistic stim, it's just the activity in which you do it in is deemed to be stimming too. I think this is a great sort of grey example to demonstrate the looseness at which people regard things as stimming. On the other side, you may have things which are not stereotypically autistic stims and are not repetitive, but do provide some level of sensory input that regulates an autistic person that meets their sensory needs. A great example of this would be listening to music. Having a playlist, a relaxing playlist that helps regulate you when you are feeling very overstimulated, very over-emotional, and you're needing to relax. It's actually something that a lot of people do. A lot of us try to regulate ourselves from input from the outside world, of course, because that is the only way that one can actually perceive the world, do things in the world. By experiencing things in life, you are in some degree experiencing some type of sensory input. And if said sensory input regulates you, do we consider that to be stimming? Or is the repetitive action the important thing? Or perhaps does it need to be this stereotypical thing that we have or psychologists have characterized as autistic stimming in order to be accurate? This is in parts the conundrum, the point of contention. I know I've said that many, many times. The word is just sticking by me. It's probably going to stick around for a long time, contention. What is it about that word that just gets me, you know? I love that. The progression of language is a very large part of human experience. Words shift and change as culture develops and different words are used in other circumstances or expanded to be used in other circumstances or even just take on a completely different meaning. But should we really be trying to keep with this integrity of the word stimming, the word stim, just because that's how it was understood? That's how it was originally concepted of within the scientific medical communities? Or is it something that actually autistic people should decide in terms of its use? But at what point do the definitions, what point does sensory input that any human experiences that relaxes us be termed to be stimming if we do not enforce some level of specificity on what we can characterise as stimming? A differentiating factor, be it. Before I go off on to one of my rants about why this expansion might have occurred, let's talk about stimming for neurotypicals. Autistic stimming, the stimming that most human beings do to self-regulate. And yes, I know, I know. Perhaps people who are not privy to the autistic community, or perhaps even autistic people themselves, you yourself rather, might be like, okay, I'm pretty sure that stimming is an autistic thing. Well, autistic people don't do it, do they? Hmm, well, if you disregard the first part of what I was talking about, being a stereotypically autistic thing, something that is repetitive, that's done over and over again, verbalisation, a movement to self-soothe, is something that a lot of human beings do. It's quite a common thing for human beings to do, especially when we're stressed, you might find people biting their nails, biting a pen lid, twizzling a pen in their fingers, bouncing their leg, sort of shifting side to side, getting rid of what people would deem as nervous energy. It might even be something as obscure as stroking one's facial hair, their beard, or tugging at pieces of flesh on their face. Sounds a bit awful. This is what some creators, one particularly interesting, cool creator, or TNL over on Instagram, deems as a little stim, being something that many people do that's quite discreet, not stereotypically autistic, that people do to regulate repetitive action that regulates them through sensory input. The other side of that coin is the big stems, which is what we would consider to be a little bit more out there, a little bit more noticeable, perhaps a little bit more stereotypical, perhaps just atypical for most people to do. When we remove and strip away the elements of what we consider to be stimming, we take away the stereotypical part, we take away the repetition, it pretty much defines anything that human beings experience. So why has this occurred, why has this expansion occurred, and are people dissolving a once autistic term into nothingness, something that applies to everything? Number one, community growth, community acceptance, the autistic community is exactly what I'm referring to here, not just the general community, that's a very vague term, Thomas. And there's also been a lot of work by autistic people to normalize different aspects of our being, to a point where there is less shame, there is less stigma around such things as stimming. And in fact, straying away from that deficit kind of medical model that I was talking about earlier, people have created this idea of sensory joy, the experience of enjoying one's different sensory world. Autistic people generally have a wide difference compared to our autistic counterparts or non-autistic counterparts. And so different things are more hypersensitive, different things are more hyposensitive, the way that we perceive the world might look a little bit different than most people. This idea of sensory joy very much highlights the benefits of having a different sensory world, the unique beauty, the unique positive experiences that one might have due to having sensory differences. And by making this such a positive kind of fun thing, which isn't founded in such kind of deficit medical based jargon, it has become something a lot more fluid. It's becoming a lot more normalized within the autistic community, it's becoming a lot more accessible to people considering adding into their day. Meeting their sensory needs is turning less from a medical ailment as some people in the world see stimming as into something which is a good thing, something that's regulating, something that can actually bring you joy. Stimming in the mainstream is generally used as a sort of humor. People tend to make fun of autistic people by doing these stimming acts. I'm not going to go through the exact acts that that people do, but I'm sure you've met someone who has tried to act like an autistic person in the various ways that they move, the ways that they act. You know exactly what I'm talking about if you have grown up, particularly in US or UK schools, even maybe Australia, New Zealand. I don't know about any other place in the world, but it definitely was a part of my school experience to see people do this. And likewise, with that inherent stigma, with that inherent humor that people have around pointing out people are doing stuff which isn't normal in their eyes, normal. Looking at it as being weird, looking as being almost inappropriate, maybe. That you're going to have parents, you're going to have professionals who view stimming as an inherently bad thing just because it looks strange, just because it sort of points you out as being someone who is different. There are many harmful teaching practices out there which aim to remove stimming, which if you didn't know is a pretty important tool for an autistic person to self-regulate. The reason, it's not because it's harmful quite often. Sometimes stims can be harmful and I can understand wanting, you know, as a child or wanting an adult to stop harming themselves. That's a little bit different, but when we're talking about non-harmful stimming self-regulation, they still want to get rid of that. They see it as a harmful behavior, not okay thing. Something that is weird, something that is abnormal, that they don't want them to do, just because it even makes people around them feel embarrassed or it makes people around them think that they are different, which they are. Definitions in general can usually be quite highly specific. Ignoring the variability of which kind of dictionary that you look at and who you ask. Stimming, although one seen as something, as I said before, a stereotypical autistic behavior has gone through a fair amount of changes and is generally used to describe things nowadays. If there's something which has a particular sensory element to it that brings you joy, you say that it's stimmy. That thing, that light over there, that's pretty stimmy. Oh, this fidget toy thing that I've got right now, it's a stimmy toy. I'm watching some kind of psychedelic trance music video. That has some visuals on it that look kind of like a kaleidoscope. Oh, that's a bit stimmy that is. I think it's important to remember that the society, the social context, the way that the word is used, even if it's not to the definition, has a lot of impact on how definitions are formed or changed over time. Just because it was once characterized in a certain way does not mean that it's always going to be that way. It's very much dependent on the way that people use the words as to how it is defined on sort of a general scale on a broad, wide scale. Now you may have rightly picked up on one specific phrase that I used during the introduction and that was self-stimulation. Something that you can imagine is some form of sensory input, so often repetitive. And although it's not stereotypical behavior, it does fit those boxes. Give me a second, I'm going to explain. Autistic people for a long time or disabled people in general, generally experience a lot of infantilization and with that infantilization can come some form of desexualization. Basically viewing disabled or autistic people as not being into sex, not having the sex, not being interested in it, not having the capacity to be sexually wanted. And there are some people within the community who do a lot of work to try and make autistic people make autistic adults, particularly more human, less infantilized, just like the rest of society does the rest of people in the world. Now whether you believe that the whole idea of resexualizing or desexualizing or not talking about it at all is very, very much up to you. All I'm doing is pointing out that I think for some people a setting that certain acts are either stimming or mutually stimming could be a way that they might be expressing it in order to desexualize autism. I'm not saying that I particularly agree with one thing or the other, although if we are going to stick to the terms of repetitive and sensory stimulatory and regulatory and all that, it kind of does make sense to a certain degree, but it's by no means a place that I want to, a hill that I want to die on. So let's talk about whether it's a good or a bad thing. This disillusionment, this fracturing of what we consider to be autistic stimming. I think the most important facet of this is that it is normalizing autistic behaviors to a certain degree amongst individuals who may not ever consider stimming or meeting their sensory needs for fear of being ostracized by their peers and also their own internal feelings about what they would think of themselves if they were to do this stereotypical autistic movement or verbalization to try and regulate themselves. I'm talking specifically about high masking individuals, but I do also have experience of feeling a fair bit of shame and a bit of worry and a bit of self-consciousness about using those stereotypical autistic stims in public. I think broadening this idea of what we consider to be stimming to a lot more things and generally approaching it with an air of trying to meet one's sensory needs in a way that regulates them helps them deal with stress. I think that's a good thing, I think to a certain degree we do need some aspect of that because for one it destigmatizes stereotypical autistic stimming and for two it opens people up to finding new ways to regulate and deal with life because god knows we quite often do need those tools those tactics in order to deal with the things that modern day people have to deal with and in fact autistic people have to deal with. I think the understanding that this is something that all humans do to a certain degree we self-stimulate we use repetitive actions like I was talking about before with the pen clicking and the nail biting and the rocking and bouncing your leg I think that's something that many people can relate to and if they can relate to that concept then there's a high likelihood that they will understand why autistic people stim. There may be a lot of theories floating out there and I would hazard a guess that perhaps the intensity at which we stim and the variety in which we stim might be related somewhat to our altered sensory profiles our needs perhaps our higher levels of anxiety and over stimulation from our environment but that's just a guess from me is not concrete. I think the concept of sensory joy is also a very welcome addition to the conversation we don't always need to be viewing autistic traits and behaviors in this very beneficial or deficit-based approach bear with me why does a concept like autistic stimming have to be there primarily to support someone in regulating their emotions why can't it just be something that people enjoy that autistic people just generally find pleasurable generally find nice and fun even if they don't need the regulation I don't think there's a need to really prescribe this as being or it's like a like a medicine you need to get your daily stimming in it can be used in lots of different contexts and I probably say that that's a good context to use it in terms of regulation but that's not the only time at which we need to be talking about autistic behaviors as something that's beneficial to dealing with an issue it should just be okay to do because it's non-harmful not something that we should just get rid of because it's weird to some people it's abnormal to some people some people find it embarrassing that's not a good reason in in my mind I'm not going to live my life according to what random people on the street think of me they've got no impact on my life at all and if people do want to avoid me because I am doing that I don't particularly want to be around people who are so judgy if I'm being honest I believe that this changing language is definitely bringing the idea of sensory differences into a more neutral space not so much of a negative kind of deficit based medical lens it doesn't necessarily have to be that way our sensory experiences can manifest as negative experiences but also positive ones really depends on the context really depends on the person in that situation one of the main arguments against this change um which I could wholeheartedly agree with like I understand where this point of contention comes from there we go again with a contention it comes from just wanting to go by dictionary definitions which is understandable it's nice to have definable terms definable words that don't vary person to person depending on what that person's world view is and what they consider to be stimming or not it's not the most comforting thing I think for a lot of autistic people for there not to be a definable term for the words that you're using I completely understand that I also think that some people may feel like by dissolving this term of autistic stimming by expanding exactly what could be considered to be autistic stimming could be seen as somewhat of an insult if that person views autistic stimming as sort of like a symptom of their child being autistic they don't particularly have very favorable lens towards that autistic child or even even if they just don't like the idea of people appropriating terms that are for a specific protected group I can understand those feelings I it's something that I've been churning around in my head and I've been trying to understand and play with these two conflicting ideas together it's a very complex thing and I don't think it's all going to be completely illuminated and understood and it's all going to be solved by this video but I would really like to hear what you think so if you want to chip into the conversation let me know how you feel please be sure to comment down below what are some of the conclusions that I've drawn from this thought experiments this analysis of autistic stimming and its uses and whether it's good and bad why it's happened I think it's important to remember just how important it can be for normalizing autistic stimming for helping people relate to autistic stimming even if they're an autistic individual not autistic person but also for late diagnosed individuals to see the importance of meeting their sensory needs but also feeling okay feeling comfortable with incorporating things which aren't particularly stereotypically autistic stims I think the term autistic stimming stereotypical term that is used and was characterized in terms of the medical community it's still around I think people characterize it as different things nowadays such as big stims as I was talking about whereas sensory input it's a little bit different sensory needs obviously meeting your sensory needs regulating yourself there's a lot of different ways that people actually communicate meeting your sensory needs regulating yourself they don't always use the term stimming but sometimes they do it really depends on the context it really depends on the person when it comes to people feeling more empowered to meet their sensory needs I think a great example for my my own life I feel like I need a lot of proprioceptive and vestibular input so movement of your body in space or balance based input I find that going to the gym tends to meet a lot of those sensory needs sure not really a repetitive thing unless you count like bice consistent bicep curls a very good standing amount of time as being repetitive it's definitely not a stereotypical autistic stim but it meets my sensory needs in the same way that stimming does in a different way in a way that is good for me please do not try to get bogged down in the definitions and the terms related to stimming a lot of the movements as far as I've seen in the community is a positive movement it's a movement towards moving autistic behaviors and traits into more of a neutral space it's about empowering encouraging others to meet their sensory needs in ways that they deem accessible to them and just from my own autistic experience my sensory differences can make life particularly overstimulating at times but it also allows me to see different sides of life to experience things that somewhat higher intensity to experience things differently and I think that's a great thing I think the whole sensory joy thing is a really sort of more more positive related thing in terms of normalizing autistic behavior or at least de-stigmatizing it to a certain degree I hope you've enjoyed this make sure to like and subscribe if you have and I'll see you in a later video