Jumping and Flapping
Jumping — really hard, high-impact jumping, with maximum concentration and the whole body thrown into it — is a common activity for kids with proprioceptive difficulties. It serves a number of purposes.
It gives a jolt to the joints that can jump-start balky receptors and send some much-needed information to the brain. It can flood a brain that is underreactive to such information with enough input to make an impression. It can give some good convincing contact with the ground to let your child know where his body ends and the sidewalk begins. And it throws in some strong vestibular input for good measure. Of course, all your child knows is that it feels good, calms him down, and helps him feel more organized.
Flapping may accompany jumping, or the action may be a little proprioceptive party all by itself. Flapping of the arms or hands gives the shoulders and elbows and wrists the same sort of joint-jolt that jumping does for the hips and knees and ankles. Together with jumping, it gives the whole body a lift.
Children with autism spectrum disorders are especially prone to flapping, often at times of distress, but any child with sensory integration disorder and issues involving the proprioceptive sense may do it when in need of sensory input, calming, or control.
Feet on the Ground
Should you make your child stop jumping? It sometimes seems that if you don't, you might lose control. It can be maddening to watch your child jump, jump, jump, slamming his body into the ground with such concentration and intensity. Your child may jump while watching television or listening to music, or just at random times. “Cut that out!” you want to cry.
Resist the urge. You may be able to get your child to stop the physical activity, but he will still feel uncomfortable and fidgety, and he may resort to even more disruptive movements to ricochet himself back into a comfort zone. As your child goes along with occupational therapy with a sensory integration approach, and you supplement that with at-home therapy and a sensory diet, his need to jump may lessen. You can always suggest that he jump on a trampoline or with a jump rope when he needs that input, if it makes you more comfortable. But your child's comfort is the primary concern here, and letting him jump in place when he needs to may be the best way, in the short run, to achieve that.
A doctor or teacher may refer to your child's flapping and other odd habits as stimming — a word used to describe the self-stimulating movements of people with autism — and insist that it must be eliminated through behavior modification. Don't be persuaded. Stimming may be a stress-relieving activity that does not hurt your child, and it may be helpful.
Flipping over Flapping
Flapping is often troubling to parents and professionals. Whereas jumping can be reframed as a useful activity, flapping seems to serve no purpose at all. It looks weird, and your child may be teased for doing it. This behavior may disturb you more deeply than others because it seems so indicative of serious neurological impairment. It may also seem to agitate your child rather than calm him.
But as with jumping, if you can keep an open mind on this, you may learn a lot about your child's needs and compensations. Is it the flapping that's agitating her, or is she doing it to calm herself because she's agitated already? Can you use the flapping as a signal that something doesn't feel right to her? Instead of specifically telling her to stop flapping, can you apply other comforting strategies to try to give her some good feeling from her proprioceptive sense? Whether this makes the flapping go away or just makes your child feel less stressed, it will be a bigger help than merely ordering the behavior stopped.
