Most children with autism have self-stimulation behaviors, but there are two kinds of self-stimulation to the child’s problem. The behavior requires intervention, the other is the opposite, and it feels that no intervention is needed. This also makes many parents feel at a loss whether to intervene in the "self-stimulating behavior of children"? Here, we have some suggestions, hoping to help everyone.
In fact, a child’s self-stimulation is a way of satisfying his own sensory stimulation. In daily life, we ordinary people also have self-stimulation behaviors, such as shaking legs, biting fingernails, etc., but the self-stimulating behavior of autistic children is different from ordinary people in that we can focus while shaking legs or biting fingernails. It is about business (listening to lectures, doing questions, working, etc.), and once autistic children start to stimulate themselves, they will use all their attention, leading to the inability to take care of other things.
It is precisely because of this that many people think that children's self-stimulation behavior must be intervened to reduce the interference with children's attention. But think about it in another way. If you can't go out in a room, and there are no electronic products that can be used as entertainment, such as mobile phones, computers, and TVs, what else can we do besides sleeping? I believe most people will find it boring. Turn around here, knock on it, play with trousers, count tiles, etc.
Many of these behaviors are things that we would not do under normal circumstances.There are even some behaviors that we feel weird, but in a specific environment, these have become reasonable behaviors. For children with autism who have communication barriers, narrow interests, and abnormal senses, the TAs themselves are in a "closed" state. Self-stimulation is the child’s way of entertainment, and when the child reaches a new In the environment or facing some tasks, TAs also use self-stimulating behaviors to relieve stress, anxiety and emotional problems.
So should we intervene in children's self-stimulation behavior? Our suggestion here is to, but not all self-stimulation behaviors are intervened. Here we will give parents a direction for reference. First of all, we must intervene in children's own harmful behaviors and behaviors that interfere with others, such as hitting the wall with the body or head (injury to the child), making strange noises, making noises, and making noises. Shooting the table (interfering with others), etc. For this type of behavior, it is necessary to eliminate as the goal of intervention.
As for other self-stimulation behaviors, if they occur more frequently and take a long time, this will affect your child's learning, so it needs to be done. Intervene, reduce the frequency, and reduce the time for children to self-stimulate behavior. If the child's self-stimulation behavior will not hurt themselves or interfere with others, and the frequency of occurrence is not high, then parents can open one eye and close one eye to give the child time for entertainment.
Summary
Finally, I want to remind parents,In terms of gaining pleasure, compared with the pleasure that children get rewarded after completing the task, the pleasure brought by self-stimulation behavior is simpler and quicker. Therefore, parents must be patient when intervening in children's self-stimulation behavior. And don’t let up when the child has made some progress, otherwise the intervention effect will quickly return to zero.
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