In the case of vocal stimming (or verbal stimming), the child might make noises such as groaning, grunting, high- pitched screeching, squealing, humming, or repeating random words, words to a familiar song, phrases, or lines from a movie.
Many kids and teens with autism make frequent sounds and noises when excited or anxious. These vocalizations — which can sound loud or quiet, high-pitched or low-pitched, happy or upset — are often a form of self-stimulatory behavior (stimming).
Repeating what others say is referred to as echolalia and it is a symptom of both autism and Tourette syndrome. Another complex vocal tic is coprolalia which involves unintentional occurrences of inappropriate or obscene vocalizations. This can cause severe disruption in many areas of a person's life.
Sometimes people with autism produce long strings of nonsensical speech sounds. We call this “jargon.” It can sound like the person is trying to express something because jargon is often produced with an adult-like intonation pattern. However, jargon is not easily interpretable.
Children with autism often sound different from other people. Some may speak in a flat, monotone voice; others may use unusual modulation or stress different words or parts of words in their speech; and some may speak at an increased volume.
Autistic people may also be able to hear sounds from inside the building – such as voices or noises from other rooms, or water in pipes and electricity in the walls. A decibel meter can be useful to support this work (now available as a phone app for those in need).
Examples of vocal stims include the following:
Making or mimicking sounds. Groaning or grunting. Squealing or shrieking. Shouting, yelling, or screaming.
Making excessive noise can indicate auditory sensory-seeking tendencies. Usually children with a hyposensitive auditory system are unable to register sound until they have additional input.
Vocal stimming involves making sounds with your mouth or breath. Examples of vocal stimming include: verbal noises. humming.
People diagnosed with autism normally use idiosyncratic speech that make little sense to those who are not familiar with them. These individuals also use odd tones, where the speeches are characterized by rises at the end of sentences and are rather monotonous.
For example, let's say an autistic child's Aunt Mary always takes him to a certain park. In his brain, he links Aunt Mary with that park, so he may say: “Aunt Mary” instead of “I want to go to the park.” Most other people wouldn't understand the connection, but it's the child's attempt at communication.
unusual body movements – for example, rocking back and forth while sitting or standing. posturing – for example, holding hands or fingers out at an angle or arching the back while sitting. visual stimulation – for example, looking at something sideways, watching an object spin or fluttering fingers near the eyes.
Auditory stimming uses the person's sense of hearing and sound. It may include behaviors such as: vocal sounds, such as humming. tapping on objects or ears, covering and uncovering ears, and finger-snapping. repetitive speech.
Stimming can take many different forms: visual: staring off into space, drawing, spinning things like pens or coins. verbal/auditory: repeating sounds, excessive giggling, constantly clearing throat. tactile: rubbing fingers, chewing/biting nails, chewing the inside of cheeks.
Children will often do something called filtering.
Basically what happens when children are using their mouth to make lots of random sounds, they're producing a sound with their mouth to act as the filter though, instead of using an external filter like a white noise machine.
It is suggested that making noises themselves may help to compete with or drown out another distracting noise. Another reason a child may make constant noises could simply be that humming, singing, talking, or making other sounds is calming and self-regulating for their nervous systems.
Stimming behaviour is almost always present in people on the autism spectrum but does not, on its own, necessarily indicate the diagnosis. The biggest difference between autistic and non-autistic stimming is the type of stim and the quantity of stimming.
Repetitive behaviour
For example, children might: make repetitive noises like grunts, throat-clearing or squealing. do repetitive movements like body-rocking or hand-flapping. do things like flicking a light switch repeatedly.
Subtle forms of stimming, such as hair-twisting, may go unnoticed. More dramatic forms of stimming, such as face-slapping, may be alarming to witness. Forms of stimming that cause physical damage may qualify as self-injurious behavior (SIB).
In children and teenagers with high-functioning autism, this can present as a limited social circle, difficulty completing group work, or problems sharing toys and materials. Many people with ASD have sensory difficulties. Certain tastes, noises, smells, or feelings can be intolerable.
Too much information. Sometimes an autistic person may behave in a way that you wouldn't immediately link to sensory differences. A person who finds it difficult to process everyday sensory information can experience sensory overload, or information overload.
Many autistic people experience hypersensitivity to bright lights or certain light wavelengths (e.g., LED or fluorescent lights). Certain sounds, smells, textures and tastes can also be overwhelming. This can result in sensory avoidance – trying to get away from stimuli that most people can easily tune out.
In the case of vocal stimming (or verbal stimming), the child might make noises such as groaning, grunting, high- pitched screeching, squealing, humming, or repeating random words, words to a familiar song, phrases, or lines from a movie.
Masking is a word used to describe something seen in many children with ASD – when they learn, practice, and perform certain behaviours and suppress others in order to be more like the people around them.