In addition to red dye #40 my son is sensitive to something in Cheetos, so I try to keep him away from this stuff, especially when we go out somewhere. He usually checks food labels before eating anything, if he has the chance to.
I just found an interesting article at
www.autism-in-the-christican-home.com/stimming.html about stimming. It says that it is commonly found in autism, but also found in other developmental disabilities.
I was surprised to see that tapping fingers is listed as an example of stimming. It also said that all of us engage in some of these behaviors occasionally, especially when we are stressed. I know this is true for me. My son pointed out that I often tapped the steering wheel when I am nervous about driving in traffic.
I have even done the "shaking my hands or flapping for whatever you want to call it" thing similar to what my son does, but only when I do something like walk into a spider web in the dark because that definitely activates my "fight or flight" response. My response is automatic and I am not thinking of how it looks to other people or anything else, so I think I can kind of understand how my son might be feeling when he occasionally does this--like when he was extremely nervous after looking at the stage in the huge university auditorium where he would soon be competing in the spelling bee. I felt like pacing the floor--another stimming behavior, accoring to the list.
When I told the OT about the stimming at the spelling bee she said he really needs to do something like running or push ups or something before he does something like this and it should help. Before the spelling bee all we did was stop by McDonald's where my son got a coke and sausage biscuit. The caffeine probably didn't help either.
I think a lot of people think that reading at 2 plus talking like an adult plus occasional stimming has to equal Asperger's.
