Rocking, Flapping, Lining Up Objects
Dr. Keith Shafritz, an assistant professor of psychology at Hofstra University, is using a form of functional magnetic imaging to study why autistic children engage in repetitive behavior such as hand-flapping, rocking, and lining up objects. From today’s Newsday:
In children with autism, Shafritz found deficits in specific regions of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of gray matter linked to all higher human functions, including repetitive behavior. He also mapped deficits in the basal ganglia, a region deep below the cerebral hemispheres.
“We like to think about the research process as discovering clues why people engage in certain behaviors,” Shafritz said last week. “We were able to identify a series of brain regions that showed diminished activity when people were asked to alter certain behaviors, and were not able to do so.”
Charlie’s never done too much hand-flapping or rocking but he does like to make sure things are placed in a certain order. He can be very upset when “asked to alter certain behaviors”—-to move one block out of the pattern he’d placed it in, in perfect alignment with the floorboards. (He’s become more easy-going about this in the past year.) Through research about the brain like Dr. Shafritz’s, I’ve gotten a better sense about why Charlie needs to do these things—for comfort, sometimes, and self-soothing. I worry less about whether or not they’re appropriate. Sometimes, I’ve learned, it just takes awhile for Charlie to “switch” between and out of certain activities.
Dr. Shafritz’s research is published in Biological Psychiatry.
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POSTED IN: Neuroscience, Psychology, Sensory
16 opinions for Rocking, Flapping, Lining Up Objects
Emily
May 28, 2008 at 12:22 pm
TH flaps and lines things up and always has. We used to think his “designs” with…whatever objects were available…were cool and would take pictures of them. We had no idea at the time that it had any significance. In retrospect–ah, hindsight–it’s clear that this was a pretty good marker, especially his insistence that they be left untouched and his ability to tell if even a single acorn was out of place.
I didn’t ever notice his rocking much, but he’s started doing that a lot lately in situations that stress him. He puts his hands on his face and rocks.
Synesthesia
May 28, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I tend to handflap and do odd things with my hands.
Not sure why. The handflapping is mostly when I’m happy or annoyed. and the odd hand stuff is when I am feeling shy.
Emily
May 28, 2008 at 1:56 pm
TH does a lot of “odd” things with his hands, holding them in contorted configurations, etc., and his hand-flapping is definitely a manifestation of excitement or irritation, usually excitement.
Synesthesia
May 28, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I tend to do it mostly when I hear a cool song or think about Dir en grey.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 28, 2008 at 2:33 pm
A lot of repetitive speech/verbalizings from Charlie. Depending on the moment, we prompt him to talk; other times I think he is “talking to himself” and just likes to hear the sound of his voice (I do, too).
Emily
May 28, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Humming? Do you hum or get humming? TH does a ton of that. He vocalizes a LOT in social situations or when he’s excited at home. Or…really, he kind of does it all the time, starting when he gets out of bed in the morning.
Karen
May 28, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Pete hums all the time, especially when he’s concentrating really hard, like when he’s doing his homework. And like Charlie, he seems to really enjoy hearing his own voice so he chatters a lot. No big deal except certain times at school when it’s really not appropriate, but he’s learned “quiet mouth” at school and that’s helped.
Pete has never lined things up; his order is much more in our schedules and routines. He’s never really flapped either, but does some interesting finger gestures that I’ve learned are really him drawing numbers in the air with his fingers. He does this especially when he’s really happy.
Emily, I remember when Pete was about 3 and had really started talking and would literally wake up humming and chattering! :-)
Shawn3k
May 28, 2008 at 7:55 pm
My son is a hand flapper and while doing that, makes a noise that sounds like he’s trying to blow out a bunch of candles. When he was really little, we would ask him what he was pretending (because it always seems to be part of something imaginary)…and he would say “wind.” As he got older, it became “Harry Potter” to the Ring Wraiths (Lord of the Rings) and now its that or SpongeBob. He doesn’t do it as often as he used to in public, but at home he is free to do it and it really seems to be a way of unwinding for him.
He did and still does line things up, but he never became agitated when the objects were put out of order or he was asked to do something differently with them. Most frequently, he will say they are battling armys…whether his favorite lining up toy (Dominoes) or his regular army men figures.
Emily
May 28, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Karen, it’s almost like it’s his “I’m awake” motor. First thing we hear in the morning, humming and purring and buzzing away in his room–or next to me.
Justthisguy
May 28, 2008 at 11:40 pm
A guy I used to hang out with had a Doberman Pinscher who would carefully take individual pieces of dog food out of his bowl and plant them in a straight line, equidistant from each other. Then he would stare at them.
I thought he did this because he was bred by German humans, but lately I think he was just an autie doggy. Most Dobermans I’ve met have been a bit, uh, strange in the head.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 29, 2008 at 1:49 am
Lots of humming and I hum back, melodically of course (not as much as Charlie).
I am definitely wary of Dobermans, regardless of diagnosis…….
Julie F
May 29, 2008 at 2:13 pm
My daughter handflaps some, claps quite a bit, and does weird things with her fingers. She never does it at school, I have been told, so sometimes they act as if I have no clue about her. [sigh].
Synesthesia
May 29, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Think Edward Scissorhands when it comes to the odd things I tend to do with my fingers.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 29, 2008 at 10:25 pm
@Synesthesia, I need to see that movie…..
@Julie F, I’m never 100% sure about things “never” happening at school—with us, there’s always overlap eventually.
Shash
Jun 3, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Spiff flaps his hands and makes a hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm sound when he’s happy or even thinking. I also notice that he talks to himself quite a bit. He’s in Middle School, and I know it might be a little strange to the other kids. They don’t pick on him about it though, but, like today, I noticed at car rider he sat alone while the others congregated. Fortunately he didn’t seem to mind. Yet.
Shash
Justthisguy
Jun 4, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Oh, one of the near neighbors in my emergency place I came to after the eviction has a handsome delightful Pit Bull doggy. He’s a sweety, but has not yet been introduced to my aged kitteh.
I love Pit Bulls, they being genetically biased against offering the slightest harm to any human, and also genetically biased to bring it on and fight to the death with any other dog.
I am thinking of Doberman Pinschers, and Rottweilers, and German Police Dogs, now politically correctly known as German Shepards, but they all have one thing in common, they were bred by Germans to go after humans.
Pit Bulls were bred by Americans to go after dogs bred by Germans.
And bite their heads off.
I am not kidding. I despise the very thought and memory of the existence of William Tecumseh Sherman, being from Georgia, like my great-great-grandparents, but one thing I’ll say for him is that his men, when “marching through Georgia” (Spit!) shot every dog they saw which might possibly unlikelily have been trained to go after humans, and bite them.
I still wanna go to Saint Louis and make an offering at Bill’s grave; I’m thinking an old-fashioned glass urine-specimen jar full of my very own kidney product, with a sprig of poison ivy in it, would be appropriate
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