Tag: stimming

  • CHAMPS and the Compliance Classroom

    CHAMPS and the Compliance Classroom

    I wrote this in 2016 after witnessing a CHAMPS classroom. My stomach dropped when I saw CHAMPS at our elementary school. “Eyes front, knees front, closed mouth” leapt off the wall and rose from memory. I was in school in the 1970s and 80s. Some teachers were really into table readiness and proper student posture,…

  • May 2022, so far, at Stimpunks: New Pages for the Website

    May 2022, so far, at Stimpunks: New Pages for the Website

    We started a Research page that opens with a spicy assessment of the status quo of autism studies, “Facts, Fire, and Feels: Research-Storytelling from the Edges“. We started an Access page. There’s a subpage dedicated to Healthcare Access. There’s a subpage dedicated to Education Access. There’s a page for Interaction Access. And there’s a page…

  • Inclusive Meetings, Classes, and Presentations with Access Notes, Bodymind Affirmations, and Small Changes

    I’ve noticed a trend among neurodivergent and disabled speakers, notably Lydia X. Z. Brown and Jonathan Mooney, of prefacing their presentations with an access note and a bodymind affirmation. They encourage people, be it in an auditorium or a group video chat, to move around and get comfortable. I believe we should all move in…

  • The Importance of Stimming as an Adaptive Coping Mechanism

    Autistic adults highlighted the importance of stimming as an adaptive mechanism that helps them to soothe or communicate intense emotions or thoughts and thus objected to treatment that aims to eliminate the behaviour. Furthermore, more recent theories have suggested that stimming may provide familiar and reliable self-generated feedback in response to difficulties with unpredictable, overwhelming…