Sometimes….I “stim.” It’s true. It is interesting and comfortable inside of my own mind, and sometimes I curl up there and block out the rest of the world.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is definitely one of my obsessions. I think about it all the time. Sometimes, when people talk, I listen to their rate of speech and try to figure out how much longer it would take me to say it on Speak for Yourself. Sometimes, I roughly calculate their core word to fringe vocabulary ratio. When my children talk to their friends, I listen to new expressions that they use or ways that they modify their language to “play.” For example, my daughter and her friends will add “y” or “licious” to their names so Hope becomes “Hopey” and Emma becomes “Emmalicious.” My 14 year old son speaks an entirely different language with his friends with game-specific vocabulary and insults. Sometimes this vocabulary transfers across settings so when my son called me a “newb” because I forgot to give him an absence note, he explained that it was short for “newbie” and it means you don’t know what you’re doing. (Umm, thanks for the explanation…I guess). My point is, I stim on AAC. My children are another obsession, which I think is common for a lot of parents.
I also stim on boots. It’s a less important stim, but it is intense. I have been across the parking lot, almost a block away, at a little outdoor shopping area, and said, “That store over there has Frye boots.” Frye boots are incredibly expensive, but they always look so nice on the shelf and they stand out…to me anyway. Sure enough, when we walked closer, I was right. I love to try boots on and see if they’re comfortable. I love when they fit a little loose around the calf and give that casual feel. I love ankle high boots with jeans, and I love sleek, basic boots with a dress. I have bought boots just because it was a color I didn’t have. I try them on in the summer, and I smuggle them into my closet because, honestly, I don’t EVER need another pair of boots. I just really enjoy them.
My friends and family know my stims. They know that if I go to the Macy’s in New York City, I’m going to want to go the city-block sized floor that is dedicated entirely to shoes. They call or text if there is anything on television related to autism, technology, and people who are not talking. My sister frequently takes pictures of her funny text conversations with my son and sends them to me because she knows I’ll enjoy them.
There is a point to my confession. (I’m sure many of you just breathed a sigh of relief). The point is this: Everybody stims.
For my mom, it’s hair. She can hear someone say “hair” from around the corner. My sisters and I tease her that she reacts the same way that my dog does when he hears the word “walk”. She basically runs from the other room and hurdles the sofa to be part of the conversation.
As you’re reading this, maybe your thinking about your own stims. Maybe you don’t call them stims or perseverations. Maybe you use gentle, accepting, positive language. Maybe you say it’s an “area of interest,” “an expertise,” or “a passion.” Maybe you are the person friends call if they want to know the details of the newest iPad release, or the season’s newest fashion trends, or who got kicked off of Dancing With The Stars. But what if your friends didn’t talk to you about those things?
What if people cut you off and told you “quiet mouth” when you started to tell them about something great your baby did?
What if someone put their finger up to their mouth to gesture for you to be quiet when you started to tell them about a new line of clothing that your favorite store is selling?
What if someone just totally ignored you when you tried to tell them what happened on your favorite TV show?
What if someone said, “We’re not talking about that right now,” and pointed to a dirty pile of dishes (insert your own unmotivating activity here) every time you tried to tell them something?
Would you keep talking to those people? How long would it take before you stopped interacting with them? If I said to someone in a supermarket, “I really love your boots!” and she rolled her eyes and ignored me, I would think she was rude and *probably* wouldn’t talk to her again. If I was having a bad day, I might tell her there’s no need to be rude. If I was having a really bad day, I *might* throw a tomato at her, but then people would say I am behavioral. (And I’d probably be arrested for assault and have to pay for the tomato). You get the point.
I’ve worked with a lot of students on the autism spectrum. When I meet students, I start to introduce them to AAC by using their passions…and I don’t call it “stimming” or “chattering.” When a student who struggles to communicate wants to engage in conversation with me, I let him choose the topic. I will talk about pretzels, Oreos, M&Ms, meerkats, weather, animals, dinosaurs, bugs, Elmo and SpongeBob with as much enthusiasm and knowledge as I can contribute.
Today, I talked extensively about the weather with a minimally-verbal student. He was scripting the same three weather sentences exactly over and over again. (If you remember the autistic adults, who we met over the summer, said that they used echolalia to learn to learn to speak. ) I can hold my own in a conversation about weather. Incidentally, we forgot to program “sunny” into Speak for Yourself. Sorry!
After almost 45 minutes of his unwavering attention, we had also talked about foods, colors, drinks, and places. We frequently touched back to weather, maybe so he could make sure I would still discuss it. Maybe because he just loves it. Maybe because every time he went back to the weather page, I would pick a new weather word. His verbal language increased, he looked in my eyes and smiled, he touched my hand, and he began saying verbally “you pick a weather.” When he was ready to go back to class, he verbally said, “I take iPad voice?” and picked up my iPad mini…while the SLPs who were in the room wiped tears from their eyes. Later, I got an email from one of them who said she “felt like she witnessed a miracle.” I love these days.
When students engage with you to tell you about their passion, they are pushing a gate open to let you into their world. How you respond will determine whether they let you walk through, or slam the gate shut. If I closed that weather button today, it is likely that I may have closed the gate to his desire to interact with me. I would have lost the opportunity for him to segment the words in the sentences he has been “scripting” for years. I would have lost my chance to connect with him, to build trust, and to let him know that I respect his thoughts, and that what he wants to say is important to me. No one would have cried happy tears. No one would feel that she witnessed a miracle.
Instead, my new friend left the room smiling, excited to show the classroom staff his words, beaming with pride as the other SLPs told him how smart he is and thanked him for being so wonderful. The SLPs left with a renewed energy and the affirmation that “this is why I went into speech-language pathology.” He swung the gate wide open and enjoyed having company in his sunny, windy, cloudy world. It was a beautiful place to be.
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