If a child stims at home and in public, it’s very likely they will also feel the need to stim at school. The changes in routine, environment, and social interactions that come with a child attending school can influence how and why they stim, and they may require different supports and interventions from teachers and school personnel. Addressing a child’s sensory needs with their school team as soon as possible, whether it’s through their IEP, 504 accommodations, or broader school services is crucial to the child’s learning experience.
We spoke to several experts to help us understand how to support a child who stims at school: Jackie Kancir, executive director of the National Council on Severe Autism, patient advocacy director of CureSynGAP1, and mother to a child with severe autism; Dr. Sarah Pelangka, PhD, BCBA-D, special education advocate and creator of Know IEPs; Jennifer Torgrude, financial planner and advisor for families with disabilities, board member of the Down Syndrome Association of Wisconsin - Fox Cities, and mother to a son with autism and Down syndrome; Breea Rosas, EdS, NCSP, LEP, neurodiversity-affirming school psychologist and autism expert; and Dr. Allison Ratto, clinical psychologist at the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, as well as associate professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine.
Both Dr. Pelangka and Rosas say that stimming isn’t a legitimate reason to have a child removed from a gen-ed classroom (though there are exceptions we will get to) and that it is less disruptive than parents and teachers might assume. As Dr. Caitlin Solone said in a previous interview with Undivided, “So what?” Normalizing stimming and allowing children the means to stim in class largely benefits their learning and experience at school.
There are plenty of accommodations that can be easily implemented at school under an IEP or 504 plan for stimming, both in a gen-ed classroom and in a special education classroom. Kancir encourages parents to discuss a communal approach with their child’s school, with accommodations that take into account both their child’s needs and the stims of others in the classroom. “If your child has stims and is going to be in environments with other children who have stims, then you really need to respect [not only] your own child’s, but [also] theirs. And how do you make sure that we can all coexist happily in the same environment?”
Depending on the child’s level of needs, it can take a while to find the right combination of services, accommodations, and advocacy for a child who stims to thrive at school. One of the best things parents can do, if their child is eligible for an IEP, is to start conversations around stimming and supports as soon as possible and as often as possible, especially if the child’s stims aren’t stable. Torgrude calls this taking a proactive approach rather than a reactive approach: giving the child options for their sensory needs from the beginning rather than waiting for an adverse reaction or a meltdown.
In this clip, Jackie Kancir describes how an IEP schedule can help support the changing needs of children, their disabilities, and their stimming:
“Every two weeks, we were having a new IEP review because we were learning more information, or we found a new intervention, or we wanted to try something,” says Kancir. She recommends that parents “request an IEP review and say, ‘I’d like to review the BIP [behavior intervention plan], and I’d like to add this in.’ Or, ‘This is how we should respond,’ or ‘This is how we shouldn’t.’ Make sure it’s as frequent as you need it to be, because none of us is stagnant. We’re constantly evolving humans. The plans — whether it’s the IEP plan, your behavior intervention plan, or a person-centered support plan — those things should be updated as frequently as needed.”
It’s likely that at some point in a child’s IEP meeting, someone from the school won’t understand the child’s need for stimming or how to support it. Don’t assume that your child’s school recognizes the same nuances in their stimming as you do or that their stims at school reflect how they self-regulate at home or in other environments and social situations.
“If you come across a school team that wants to redirect some of that stimming, sometimes it’s on parents to educate the educators about what’s okay, what’s acceptable, what’s important,” says Rosas. “Not all educators are up to date on best practice either. Embrace it, accept that as part of your child’s neurotype, and try to foster it in a way that makes them feel accepted for who they are. They belong in this family. They belong in this classroom. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing.”
Stimming in a strength-based IEP
Stimming, sources say, can also be used as a tool in the child’s learning. Kancir says that aligning a child’s learning with their stims can help them better absorb different educational concepts. “If somebody really loves rocking, use that to help them learn to count. You’ll see a lot of individuals with severe autism, their cadence and their voice is often attached to one of their stims for their learning; that kinetic movement helps them process and retain that learning, so we build it into the teaching when possible.”
Dr. Pelangka says that parents and school teams can also incorporate a child’s stims into their electives or activities outside of school. “I would say utilize it as a strength. If you have a kid who’s a spinner, put them in dance. Bring in accommodations and use the OT to support said accommodations and meet them where they’re at.”
Staying informed and supportive
For students with higher support needs and co-occurring disabilities, regular IEP meetings are critical to keeping a child’s IEP team on the same page about their stims and sensory diet. Kancir says that at times she requested IEP meetings every two weeks in order to keep her team informed about how her daughter’s stims were changing and how to support them. Especially after a longer break, like winter or summer vacation, the IEP services, BIP, and providers might all need a refresh on the child’s evolving needs.
Dr. Pelangka encourages team members to, just like a parent, keep an open mind and meet the child where they’re at. “I think it’s important as a therapist or a specialist, when you’re working with families, to have that lens of understanding where they’re coming from culturally, but also helping them to be able to see it from the lens of their child.”
Rather than trying to discourage or change a student’s stimming, sources universally believe that stims should and can be accommodated; only in severe cases should a child’s school team work to replace a stim. There are a number of accommodations and supports that teachers can offer to a child who stims. Some examples of accommodations can look like these:
Just as stims develop and change throughout a child’s life, so will the kinds of stimuli the child responds positively to. For Kancir and her daughter, “When she was very little, they gave us a tactile cushion for her to sit on, so that she could focus better when we were trying to feed, and it really did help. As years went on, we did things like having the stabilization ball in the classroom.” Keeping a record of a child’s accommodations and their stims with members of the child’s health care team, such as an OT, BCBA, or speech pathologist, can help both parents and school personnel stay on top of sensory changes and better anticipate potential negative reactions.
“I had a sensory diet developed through occupational therapy when she was in school, and that was provided on a timed basis so that we [could] honor that cognitive load that comes along with autism,” Kancir adds.
One of the best tools that parents can use to support their child’s stimming at school is a behavior intervention plan (BIP), a document that identifies a child’s triggers and documents the school’s responses to challenging behavior within a structured plan to support the child and prevent negative behavior outcomes. A BIP is based on and requires a functional behavior assessment (FBA) to determine how the child’s behaviors may be adversely impacting their education and the experience of others in the classroom. However, Dr. Pelangka emphasizes that a BIP should never be used as a means of controlling or eradicating a student’s stims, but rather as a guiding document to help school personnel understand the supports the student may need. It should also aim to identify potential stimming triggers, rather than to simply mitigate their impact in the classroom.
“The most common thing I see that drives me nuts is ‘calm hands, safe hands,’” a common behavior redirection technique. But, Dr. Pelangka says, other than a momentary stop, “that is not doing anything. I always try to work with teams on identifying if it’s even something that needs to have an intervention. ‘Is it impeding learning? Is it impeding their quality of life?’ If the answer is no, then let’s move along. If the answer is yes, let’s look at ways to support [the student]. Let’s bring in the OT. Let’s talk about more communication.” Focusing on skill building and creating productive goals, rather than engaging in reactive redirections, she says, is much more effective at addressing maladaptive stimming and dysregulation.
Some questions that parents should ask their child’s IEP team when considering a BIP are:
“I’m always trying to get in front of [the behavior]. If he’s completely dysregulated, that’s reactive,” says Torgrude, and [it] doesn’t truly address how the stimming escalated. “Allow him, empower him, equip him. I am a big proponent of a BIP, if done correctly, because I feel like now there is a document that says, ‘Here are the five things or 10 things that can help this person.’ When we see him getting louder, we maybe need to offer the bathroom. Maybe we need to offer him a drink, because he can’t just say, ‘Can I go get some water?’ You know, he just can’t articulate and advocate for himself — that behavior is the only way he advocates.”
In this clip, Jennifer Torgrude explains her approach to a BIP for her child’s stimming:
A BIP can also provide a degree of protection from potential punishment (though it’s not guaranteed), such as immediately being sent to a seclusion room, or it can help keep a child’s supports in place under extenuating circumstances, such as a day with a substitute teacher. In extreme circumstances, Rosas says, the school may choose to restrain a child if they have exhausted all other options, but doing so should never be treated lightly.
“Restraint and isolation, but restraint especially — it’s awful. It’s a horrible process that happens,” says Rosas. “It’s very traumatic.” Parents should know that restraint is not a reflection on their child, and the onus is not on the child and parents to fix or stop their stimming. “What led to that student becoming so dysregulated, and what could we have done to prevent it?” she adds. “If your child is being consistently restrained, that’s a big problem. There is an issue in the behavior plan that is not working. Immediately call a meeting and make it really clear that you’re not okay with it.”
Parents can not only request alternative strategies, such as clearing the classroom or calling parents to take the child home, but they can tell the team in writing to prohibit the use of restraint on their child. “When parents stay quiet, educators take that as, ‘Oh, it wasn’t that big of a deal to them,’ or maybe even that the parents appreciate a compliance-based approach. And I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think parents want people putting their hands on their kids like that.”
As the sources for this article and many of the research articles cited indicate, children who stim do so because they enjoy it and benefit immensely from the sensory effect it gives them. While the body of stimming research and the sources here highly discourage parents from seeking to eradicate or replace their child’s stims (excluding harmful exceptions), there may be instances where the child themselves wants help addressing or minimizing their stims at school. This, Rosas says, likely comes from a place of embarrassment or shame at how their stims are perceived. If a child wants interventions for their stims, they should be administered with the affirmation that their stimming is supported regardless.
“It should always be the individual guiding us as the adults, as educators, as service providers, on what’s important to them. If there’s a kid that comes to me and says, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t like the way I look when I do it. What can we do?’ Great. Let’s try some other tools. Let’s try something else,” she says. “I wouldn’t tell someone that what they’re doing is socially not okay, but if they feel that way, of course we want to help them. We either want to support them in acceptance or to change the stim. We can figure out ‘when can I do this sim? When might I do something else?’ Sometimes, just identifying that is helpful.”
We asked our experts for their top tips to help parents of kids who stim at school:
Ask questions
Torgrude’s favorite word in IEP meetings and therapy appointments is “why?” Dr. Pelangka adds that the more informed a family is and willing to take in as much information as possible from their child’s care and school team, the better time a child who stims will have throughout their life. This can include questions about stimming, therapy options, or how a medication’s side effects can impact a child’s sensory processing and stims.
Recognize that not all providers are the same
As all the sources interviewed for this piece have said, not every occupational therapist or speech pathologist or ABA provider will understand a child’s individual stims or have the same affirming approach to them. It’s absolutely worth it to try out many forms of support and services for your child until you find one they respond positively to. The first options a school presents for supports for a child are not the only ones.
To learn more about stimming, head over to our articles What Is Stimming? and Should You Stop Your Child’s Stimming? What Parents Need to Know.
Save your favorite resources and access a custom Roadmap.
Get Started
