My 5 year old son flaps his hands and makes noises when excited. He was a little developmentally delayed and in school is getting speech, motor skill and sensory skill training, We are told that he controls the hand flapping in class. He is age appropreiate academically. He knows how people are feeling by voice tone and expression and acts appropreiate to a persons feelings. He is a very happy kid and loves playing with his friends. There are times when he like s to play on his own but would rather be with other children. While he hand flaps he has never try to hurt himself or anyone else and is very caring towards other people. Showing affection has never been a problem for him. He looks at you when expressing himself and points to show you things, He has never been a great eater but it has gotten better with age. He also enjoys afterschool activieties(Swimming lessons, gymnastics, soccer and this winter will be learning to play basketball). Since he has had the extra help, which started at age 3 he has made outstanding progress. We have had him to see a child psycholgist twice since age 3 and was told that he may have some Autistic tendencies was not thought to be Autistic. We were that the hand flapping was his way of releasing energy when excited. The school feels the same way.
Is it true that children can have Autistic tendencies and not be somewhere on th Autistic spectrum? We were also told that if the stimming does not get in the way of him doing things at home we should let him do so, is that true? But also cautioned to watch that it does get worse as time goes on