What is stimming?
In this video, Vanessa Castañeda Gill explains stimming, why it's important, and how to support students if they are stimming in a way that is harmful.
Transcript
Stimming defines repetitive movements that neurodivergent folks use to find calm, ground themselves, and to even express happiness. And as someone who stims myself, I would explain it as gaining some type of control in an ever-moving and ever-changing world. Some examples of Stimming might include flapping your hands, rocking back and forth, twirling your hair, and repeatedly clicking a pen.
And because Stimming is a tool for self-regulation and self-expression at times, it's really important to not punish if your students, if they are Stimming. And it's important to not encourage the suppression of stims. For example, you know, if you came home from an exhausting day at work and suddenly your Netflix, your couch and your dinner were just all taken away, you'd probably be pretty anxious and overwhelmed, right?
So in terms of if a stim is distracting or harmful for others, then you would want to understand the underlying need that that stim is meeting, and then redirect the student to a stim that is a little bit safer or less distracting. So for example, if a student is humming very loudly, it's distracting other students.
You'll maybe find that. They're humming because it's drowning out different background noises. In that case, you'd wanna replace that with some concert ear plugs with, uh, some noise canceling headphones, or with something that provides a consistent and stable rhythm like a spinner ring. If this was super helpful to you, you will really like our professional development that we have for schools and districts, which you can find at socialcipher.com.
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Key Takeaways
- Stimming is a self-regulation and self-expression tool, not a behavior problem. Suppressing it removes a coping mechanism that students depend on to manage sensory input, emotional states, and focus.
- When a stim is disruptive, the goal should be understanding the underlying need it serves and finding an alternative that meets the same need.
- Offering the whole class access to sensory tools like spinner rings, noise-canceling headphones, or rhythmic objects normalizes stimming and removes the stigma that prevents students who need them from using them.
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