Stimming / repetitive movements
Stimming / repetitive movements
Hello. My child is 1 year and 3 months old. Ever since he turned one, I’ve been feeling concerned about his development, as I notice he is slightly lagging behind. We have already seen a neurologist and a speech therapist (logopedist). The speech therapist noted that the child has sensory processing issues and poor comprehension of receptive language; he usually only does what he likes (in terms of following directions).
At the moment, he says "mama," "papa," "baba," and uses "ba" for both dogs and cats. He knows how to play patty-cake (ladushki), shows "high and low" with his hands, gives high-fives, smiles responsively, and responds to his name. He notices other children, animals, and people—he might approach them, touch them, or pet animals.
What concerns me is the absence of a pointing gesture and the absence of "bye-bye" or "hello" waves. However, he does reach out with his whole hand if he wants something.
Literally right after a developmental leap (when many of his gestures first emerged), he started stimming. But I am not entirely sure if it actually is stimming. He vocalizes actively and has recently started occasionally flapping his hands ("wings")—not when he is focused or expressing intense emotions, but just randomly for a couple of seconds. Sometimes he moves his hand back and forth, or shakes his head. We noticed similar behavior before when he was teething, but then he abruptly stopped, and now he has started again (though he already has 16 teeth, so they seem to be all out). He has also started spinning the wheels of toy cars again and opening/closing doors. He can be distracted from this, but he does it quite often, though only for a couple of minutes at a time.