“Stims” come in many shapes and sizes: staring at lights, repetitive blinking, moving your fingers in front of your eyes, tapping your ears, snapping your fingers, making sounds, spinning objects, rubbing your skin, scratching, smelling objects, rocking, jumping, clapping, or leg-shaking. A stim might indicate that someone has a problem, but the stim itself is not the problem. In fact, asking an autistic person not to stim can end up causing more problems than the stim itself.
