Yep, the heading is right. Repetitive behaviour is the basis of stimming which is brought about by the need for stimulation and stimming gives a child what he or she needs from the  feelings of doing that particular activity or in more particular terms; Stimming is self stimulation to obtain the sensory input needed at that time.
 
There are many many different forms of stimming and many people in society can find it quite confronting to see a child who at times behaves in a way they don’t understand. Please remember that it’s ‘normal’ for people to stare, it isn’t polite and you’ll wish they had better manners, but it is ‘normal’. There’s a common saying in autie land…

 “Please, continue to stare at my child, you might cure his/her autism… then we’ll work on your social skills”.

While I could ramble on with all the different forms of stimming listing them one by one and in turn I may even miss a few (I’m human), I believe you’ll find it easier to understand the different behaviours you may encounter with the words of families just like yours. Please remember though that your child is unique and is therefore more than capable of coming up with more stims than those listed here :)
 
Family One:
My son likes flipping straws, turning lights on and off, lining up of toys, chewing clothes, a favourite of his was spinning things... saucepan lids etc... the list goes on , I would call them stims/ obsessions , fortunately as my son has got older he has lost quite a lot of stims, but then gained new ones :(

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Family Two:
My son has done the following: run around the room in circles over and over again, smack his forehead with his hand over and over, chews his clothes, pulls his lip with his finger repeatedly.
 
Family Three:
My son chews... his clothes, coins, pencils, things he's picked up off the ground, bread ties (you know those plastic square things). He's completely destroyed 2 separate Chewlery type items.
 
Family Four:
My son chews his index fingers, flaps his hands, claps, puts his arms above his head and twists his wrists around and wrings his hands together. He smacks walls, shakes really excitedly over and over again, opens his mouth wide open and does weird facial expressions, turns lights on and off and spins with his arms out to his sides.
 
Family Five:
My daughter chews zippers, chains and straws lately, she also spins and jumps, grinds teeth, flutters her fingers near her eyes, clicks her tongue, lines things up, she also likes staring at lights. She also counts to ten lately when she is stressed… so it happens when she can’t see me when she wakes up too early of a morning or when strangers stare at her.
 
Family Six:
My son spins, chews everything possible (and some you wouldn’t think you could), pushes his hand into his mouth when excited, runs round and round, sometimes he flaps, sometimes he flickers lights. He’ll also use anything he can to repeatedly hit something over and over again like using a hammer. He tastes things, licks things to taste and feel the texture. Sometimes he hums.
 
Family Seven:
My granddaughter shakes really excitedly like just she is holding something and she is shaking her head but not moving I hope that makes sense… I have never seen it before. She jumps and jumps and jumps, and loves sitting under lights.
 
Family Eight:
My lad Tigger bounces.  I've noticed it happens more on days when circumstances mean we haven't done enough sensory stuff so I think its a way of him filling his own "sensory diet" (does anyone else's OT use that phrase? sounds a bit nuts to me!!) Lately I've been playing the music that the OT recommended and it seems to shorten how long he does it for.

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Family Nine:

My daughter is 7 years old. She gets excited flapping hands with weird face/mouth movements. She also wipes her mouth with one hand all the time. Of course there is the lining up toys.
 
Family 10 
I have a 6.5 year old girl with autism and her cousin, a girl also, is 7 with Aspergers. My little girl loves spinning until she is so dizzy she falls over, crashing like deliberately throwing herself off a scooter and throwing herself into walls, lining up toys, the feel of soft fluffy animal toys, leaning on everything including me which drives me crazy. She's just started squealing in a really high pitched loud voice which I'm not sure why. She prefers a dark room. She also prefers to do her homework lying on the floor rather than being at a desk. 
 
Family 11 
My son holds musical toys up to his ear. He likes the auditory input. This is calming to him.
 
Family 12 
My son can make loud, weird noises at times I guess you don't notice after a while lol he loves to listen to the chipmunks too of course played at the highest volume - quite funny as my hubby is aspergers too and he can't stand the noise of the chipmunks can be quite interesting in the car - NOT!!!
  
Family 13 
This will sound really weird, our son has started squeezing his own butt cheek, the left one in particular.



Family 14 
My son flicks light switches so much it drives everyone insane in my house, he also likes to collect things and count them over and over and he makes a funny clicking noise with his mouth that he does over and over too just to annoy his sister I think because she hates it. Also when he says sometime if I don't react straight away he repeats it over and over, plus he repeats things off his favourite shows. He also runs round and round in circles or from one end of the house to the other. There are probably a lot more things but because they have just been things that he has always done I don't take a lot of it on board I guess.
 
Family 15 
The vacuum makes my son run around for more than an hour... even after I’m finished
 
So where does this all leave you???  First of all, reading these will make you realise that your child is very much normal in the real sense. Your child’s behaviours come very naturally to him/her and are things they need to do for themselves and there will be many times when you’re generally frustrated at what damage they can do to fulfil the need for this input but please remember, cause and effect. To stop a stim you need to replace a stim with something that’s more acceptable to you and your family.
 
HOWEVER!!! Don’t think you can stop behaviour overnight. All these things take time; you’re trying to replace something that comes naturally to your child and you can inadvertently create more damaging behaviours by trying to change things too quickly and it may end up taking you longer than you were hoping.



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