Have you ever caught your child tapping their fingers rhythmically, or maybe pacing around a room repeatedly? You might have been tempted to gently ask them to stop or redirect their attention to something else, but what if that repetitive movement — often called stimming — is more than just a habit?
What if it’s a signal?
A signal pointing toward their hidden talents, their superpowers, and even their life’s purpose?
We sit down with Amanda Trisdale, an advocate, and mother to Lita, a highly talented autistic dancer, to explore how stimming isn’t a behavior to suppress — but a clue to embrace.
Table of Contents
- Why stimming isn’t just a habit — it’s a clue to super talent
- From stimming to skill: Unlocking potential through creative expression
- How to connect your child’s stimming to an activity that unlocks growth
- The power of finding their flow — and why it matters more than fitting in
- Should stimming always be left alone? Knowing when to step in
- How to introduce calming sensory activities
- Why reframing stimming is key to unlocking your child’s true potential
Welcome to ‘The Happy Sensory Corner in Special Ed’ – the podcast where we explore the world of sensory enrichment and environmental enrichment in special education.
Through insightful discussions, interviews with experienced special education directors, and inspiring stories of resilience, we uncover the secrets to success in special education. Discover practical strategies, sensory enrichment protocols, and evidence-based practices that can transform the lives of special education students and educators.
Anneke Elmhirst is a relationship coach and former behavior analyst. With her we discuss:
– Ethical concerns with ABA practices and how they can impact neurodivergent children.
– The importance of respect and self-regulation in building healthier relationships between neurodivergent children and their parents.
– How parent education can foster acceptance and long-term well-being for children with special needs.
Anneke shares her journey from behavior analysis to relationship coaching, revealing why she left the ABA field due to ethical concerns and how she now empowers families and individuals to thrive authentically.
Claudie explains the brain’s role in self-regulation and the neurobiology behind stress reduction in children with sensory challenges. She also shares sensory enrichment strategies, including specific games to support emotional regulation and build trust between parents and children.
Episode Highlights
@3:37 – Anneke explains why she transitioned from ABA to coaching, citing the need for more ethical, child-centered practices.
@7:28 – Anneke describes her concerns about the societal pressures in ABA, including an anecdote about pushing children toward “age-appropriate” recreational skills that might not bring them joy.
@13:33 – Anneke challenges the idea that parents must “change” their children to fit societal norms and highlights the importance of fostering acceptance.
@15:23 – Anneke shares practical steps for educating parents about behaviors like stimming and how to help them reframe these actions positively.
@24:06 – Claudie explains how serotonin imbalances contribute to anxiety in nonverbal children and describes sensory enrichment activities, like massage and music, that help children self-regulate.
@38:11 – Claudie shares a touching story about how offering alternatives for a child’s unsafe stimming behavior led to mutual respect between the child and parent.
@38:51 – Anneke highlights why respect is a two-way street and shares how children often communicate respect in unique ways.
@40:52 – Anneke discusses how teaching children to respect boundaries fosters emotional growth and independence.
Why stimming isn’t just a habit — it’s a clue to super talent
Many parents, teachers, and caregivers see stimming as something to manage.
It’s natural to feel this way, especially when we want our children to feel comfortable in various settings, like school or family gatherings.
However, Amanda Trisdale shared something profound during our discussion:
“Stimming wasn’t a behavior I needed to fix; it was a clue to something more. When Lita started tapping, I didn’t know it at first, but I was watching her develop the beginnings of her tap dancing talent.”
What Amanda noticed is something many parents overlook: Stimming may be the outward expression of an internal passion or strength.
Her daughter’s seemingly random taps were the seeds of her blossoming dance career.
Instead of discouraging the tapping, Amanda allowed it to flourish, eventually leading Lita to professional dance opportunities.
If you’re a parent, imagine for a moment — what if your child’s stimming behavior is the first sign of a hidden talent waiting to be nurtured?
A study from Nature supports the idea that repetitive behaviors like stimming can stimulate certain brain regions tied to learning and motor skills. This gives stimming a purposeful role in development (source).
From stimming to skill: Unlocking potential through creative expression
Parents often find themselves frustrated by stimming because it can be disruptive or socially awkward.
But what if, instead of asking your child to stop, you asked yourself, What if this is their way of expressing a need?
Amanda saw her daughter Lita flourish when she moved from stimming to formal tap dance lessons.
“The physical therapist recommended dance for her motor skills,” Amanda explained. “We had no idea she would latch onto it so fast. By six, she was already mastering tap choreography without being able to express herself verbally.”
Lita’s development wasn’t only physical. Tap dancing opened up new pathways for communication, as her speech and comprehension began improving along with her dance skills.
Our founder Claudie elaborates on this, explaining that dancing or any form of rhythm-related activity can engage the brain in powerful ways:
“When children engage in activities that require movement, sound, and rhythm, they activate the brain’s natural dopamine production. This boost in dopamine not only improves motor control but also stimulates language development,” Claudie shared.
Her observations are consistent with neuroscience research showing that movement can enhance speech and cognitive development in children, particularly those with neurodiverse conditions (source).
How to connect your child’s stimming to an activity that unlocks growth
It’s tempting to simply redirect a child when their stimming behavior becomes distracting.
But imagine if you could channel that energy into something that aligns with their abilities?
Here are practical steps to help guide you:
- Observe the type of stimming: Is your child tapping, rocking, or repeating certain motions with their hands? Each kind of movement can offer a clue to what they enjoy. Tapping, for example, may indicate a natural rhythm that could be linked to musical or dance talents. If they’re constantly organizing objects, they may have a mind suited for puzzles or spatial activities like LEGO or Rubik’s cubes.
- Introduce them to a variety of activities: Once you have a sense of what the stimming might indicate, expose them to related activities. For example, if they’re tapping, introduce drumming or dance classes. If they love repetitive tasks, introduce crafts or activities that involve intricate details.
- Focus on what excites them: Pay attention to the activities where your child lights up. Lita, Amanda’s daughter, quickly fell in love with tap dancing because it felt right to her. You’ll notice when your child finds their “flow” — the activity that feels natural and exciting.
- Use stimming as a motivator: Rather than trying to eliminate stimming, view it as part of the process. Incorporate it into the activity they’re passionate about. Many neurodiverse individuals use their stims to focus or feel grounded, so allowing them to do this while pursuing an activity can be a key to their success.
Amanda’s experience with Lita’s tap dancing is a powerful example of this. Instead of curbing Lita’s stimming, they allowed it to evolve naturally into a form of artistic expression.
“We’re not experts on everything,” Claudie added. “But when it comes to brain development, we know that the more a child can engage their mind and body in something they love, the more they will grow, thrive, and find peace in being their true selves.”
The power of finding their flow — and why it matters more than fitting in
A common concern for many parents is whether their child will ever “fit in.”
The truth is, fitting in isn’t always the goal.
As Amanda noted, Lita’s dance journey began in special classes designed for neurodiverse children, but her skills outgrew those settings.
“She would be placed in classes with 20 neurotypical children and still stand out because of her talent,” Amanda said. “Eventually, her talent spoke for itself.”
This highlights a crucial point: Children, particularly those who are neurodiverse, can excel in environments where they are allowed to shine, even if those environments are not where they “fit in” traditionally.
Helping your child find their flow — the activity where they lose track of time and feel joy — is more important than whether they fit neatly into societal expectations.
As Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research on flow suggests, individuals who regularly enter this state are often more creative, productive, and happier (source).
Parents, teachers, and health professionals alike need to focus on helping children discover their flow rather than pressuring them to conform.
Should stimming always be left alone? Knowing when to step in
While we’re championing the idea that stimming can signal hidden talents, it’s also important to know when to intervene.
Sometimes, stimming may be linked to discomfort or anxiety, and this is when it becomes necessary to understand what’s going on.
Amanda pointed out that while Lita’s stimming was often related to her love of rhythm, there were times when it escalated during high-stress situations.
In such cases, Claudie recommends balancing support with understanding:
“It’s essential to step in with care when stimming becomes excessive or interferes with a child’s ability to focus on their surroundings. By introducing calming sensory activities — like deep pressure touch or sensory-enrichment games that involve smell and sound — you can help them regulate without suppressing the stimming completely.”
This approach is backed by evidence that sensory input helps calm the nervous system and reduce anxiety (source).
How to introduce calming sensory activities
One of the most effective ways to balance stimming without suppressing it is through sensory-enrichment games, which you can incorporate into daily routines.
These games are designed to stimulate the brain gently, using inputs like sound, touch, and scent, to help children feel more grounded.
If you want to get started, check out our blog on how sensory enrichment helps children with special needs.
We also offer guides such as Sweet Slumber in 3 Simple Sensory Steps to help you integrate sensory activities into daily life.
Why reframing stimming is key to unlocking your child’s true potential
At the end of the day, the message is simple: Stop suppressing stimming — it could be the clue you’ve been searching for.
Stimming isn’t always something to fix; it’s often something to embrace.
Amanda’s story with her daughter Lita is a testament to how a small behavior can blossom into a life-defining talent when given the space and support to grow.
Parents, educators, and professionals need to start viewing stimming as a form of communication, an expression of a child’s inner world.
By doing so, we can open up new possibilities for their future and help them grow into the people they’re meant to be.
If you’re curious about more ways to support your child’s brain development, explore our program of Gentle Family-Centered Brain Games designed to unlock hidden potential in children with neurodiverse needs.
Transcript
Kim: So where do we start Amanda? How far back do you want to go? Do you want to go where you know you got inspired to start a non-profit dance studio? Do you want to go further back than that?
Amanda: We can go as far back as you want to go.
Kim: Okay, well, let’s start where every parent starts. You discover certain things and you go to the doctor and the doctor gives you some interesting news. What do you do from there?
Amanda: I think it was a little bit easier for me because I had been diagnosed with Asperger’s. So when I was sitting in the developmental pediatrician’s office and he’s like, we think she has autism. I’m like, okay.
Amanda: And he was joking because his son was finishing up his residency as a neurosurgeon and he’s like, yep, that sounds like my Asperger son too. Where it’s like, I’ve been here, done this, bought the t-shirt. I knew I also had worked in advocacy beforehand. So I knew what red tape was waiting for us. I knew where we needed to cut it. I knew how to play the military system because my husband’s military, and I knew exactly who to talk to to get all the authorizations in place, which was helpful for us. And it was more knowing that we had a long road ahead of us because I knew how many people were going to judge all of her quirks, all of her stimming, and say that that was problematic when I’m like, this is just who she is. Let’s just roll with this.
Kim: Love it. So when does dancing start to become part of the picture?
Amanda: She was six, and we had her in physical therapy. She has, along with all the autism, the severe dyslexia, the ADHD, the auditory processing, she popped her hip out of joint when she was 11 months old. And they decided to see if it just would grow back in joint. Fun fact, it didn’t. So she’s got a bad hip. She was in physical therapy and the therapist was like, “Hey, she really seems to be responding to the dance therapy. Have you thought about just dropping her completely in dance classes?” So we went, we put her in the pre-dance combo class. She was iffy on ballet, she has never liked ballet. But once she slipped those tap shoes on, she was in heaven. She did not have receptive or expressive vocabulary really still at six, but she was picking up that tap choreography like there was no tomorrow. She was picking up the tap vocabulary. She was… one of her stims is a, and has always been a very impressive three-point tap move that more advanced tap dancers struggle with. She just automatically knows how to do it. Which is one of the reasons her physical therapist was like “dance, put her in dance.”
Kim: Interesting. It makes me want to jump straight into further down the line with the questions. I wanted to learn more about the journey. And maybe I’d like to ask Lita if she’s comfortable. What did it feel like to tap dance for the first time? Was it like, “I’m home”? Was it like, “This feels amazing. I never knew this could be so amazing”? Was it, “I don’t know what’s going on, my body is just doing something and I don’t understand”? What was it like?
Amanda: She’s going to the end of it and did not realize how and when the time flows.
Kim: My daughter is a national-level figure skater, and she says that all the time. It’s two, three hours for figure skating, practicing to choreography, and just doing all the jumps, and the three hours feel like two minutes. Is it the same?
Amanda: It is the same. And then suddenly out the door, and then I forget everything. Yeah, it’s so… that’s pretty much the same, that time just flies by when you’re in dance class.
Kim: That’s cool. So, back to you Amanda, when you saw Lita thrive or just be so happy, right, in that state of flow? I mean, I know as a parent, my biggest dream is to have all of my children get to a place in their life where they can find a way to get in flow as often as possible, and ideally get paid for it. So, I suspect that you saw something. You saw Lita. Was it the happiest you’d ever been?
Amanda: It was definitely the happiest she’d ever been. She, like I said, she started doing tap dancing in the middle of… we do a lot of crafting around the house, and we’d be in the glass section of Michael’s and she’s sitting there tap dancing. And I’m sitting there going, “Not in the glass section, honey.”
Kim: It is funny, you say that… I want to ask you a question. Did anything ever happen? Did she ever knock anything over?
Amanda: She has not. Along with tap, how she popped her hip out of joint, which was where the physical therapist was like, “dance.” At 11 months old, she was trying to do the same moves as ballet guy from Phantom of the Opera. Oh, you let me watch it. And it was the, you know, Prince Albert Hall 25th edition. It wasn’t the American movie release. Yeah, turns out she’s always, but she’s extremely happy. You see it on stage. Even her choreographers have said she will be sitting in the corner just kind of overwhelmed and she gets on stage, and you can just see how happy she is. And it just radiates. And the audience gets very excited about it. Which is cool to see as a parent, seeing other people react to your child that way.
Kim: Did dancing or tap dancing impact Lita’s development emotionally, socially, physically?
Amanda: It definitely impacted her speech. And I have a few therapists who disagree with me, but I disagree with them. Her speech, when she was six, when we put her in, she was barely starting to understand what “mom” meant or what “stop” meant. She was very nonverbal at the time. Her understanding of the English language, her understanding of how to communicate, her understanding that words actually have meaning grew with her tap dancing. The more she was spending time rehearsing and practicing, the better her speaking became.
Kim: Claudie, this is where you can come in. What do you think? Is there an explanation?
Claudie: Yeah, of course. Dancing, in fact, has started to become a tool for parents because of the good it does. One of the benefits would be the sound, the music, but also the sound that she makes helps the brain release those two wonderful messengers called serotonin and dopamine. Dopamine is in control of movement. She was already amazing with the control of movement, so she could move on and develop parts of her brain that are going to develop the speech. Speech is the most complicated activity in the human brain. It takes almost all the activity that corresponds to dancing. We have mental images, which are important. You need to see in your mind before you talk. So she had to see in her mind her body and her feet so that she could do the movement. She developed mental images, she developed the motor activity, the control of the brain over her motor, the fine motor, the gross motor, balance. That’s also part of speech. Between the sound, following the sound – auditory processing – we at Mendability have every family listen to orchestral music or to instruments in general because it helps being selective in sound. When you have this tool, now you can understand what other people are saying. So, there is almost nothing in dance that is not going to be helpful for speech. So, you are the example that it’s not going to a place and having someone make you repeat words. It’s sort of a balanced and wholesome condition that you need to develop in order to be able to communicate, and it happened. So yeah, everything that you’ve done makes sense that she would speak, for sure.
Kim: I’m thinking also about motivation. Lita wants to just do more dancing and be more in dancing, and I think I’d like to ask that question to Lita. I’m not sure how to phrase it, but she now wants to participate and engage more, and she can see that other people are in that world of dancing, and if she engages with those other people, she will have even more dancing. It’ll be even more fun or even more interesting. So now she’s got a reason to engage, a reason to understand more than just the transactional stuff that you usually get to in speech therapy, where you need to learn to do this and how to do this. It’s a very sterile clinical environment with no interest. But as we’ve seen it over and over with our podcast episodes, as soon as there’s a connection and an interest, all of a sudden, all the tools that people have been striving for years and years to teach the kids, they just come naturally. So, Lita, my question to you is… help me out, Claudie.
Claudie: What’s a good question to ask?
Kim: I want to know what it felt like to want to speak.
Amanda: Maybe that’s a question.
Claudie: Because of what you said, Kim, there is also something that makes sense, which is your awareness of yourself. When I work with families where the child doesn’t have any ability to interact with people, I tell them, well, first, that child has to know they’re there. And when they know they’re there, then they can see other people. So for Lita, it was she is giving something. Do you feel, Lita, that you are giving something when you are dancing?
Amanda: Great.
Claudie: That goes with what you were saying. That’s so perfect.
Kim: So now that we understand why dancing is so good for kids, why aren’t we teaching dancing to everybody as therapy? Why don’t we call it dance therapy? I guess maybe because some kids don’t like dancing. Lita, I love dancing. Maybe some kids won’t. We were talking the other day to a parent who loves skiing, right? I mean, the odds of the kids, of the parents discovering that skiing was the one thing that was going to unlock everything, are pretty slim. At the end of the episode, I remember encouraging everybody to keep looking, keep looking for what is going to make that child connect with the world. And all of a sudden, everything is going to fall into place. I’m wondering if stimming is a clue.
Amanda: I wonder, because some kids…
Kim: …are into spinning things. So what would that tell us about where their interest lies?
Claudie: Actually, I’m asking you, Amanda, as a person with Asperger’s, what is your stim?
Amanda: I’m always messing with my fingers and fiddling with stuff. And I know a few of my college professors got really annoyed because I would listen better and be able to repeat what they were saying in lectures better if they would let me cross-stitch during the lecture. And I do these amazing intricate cross-stitches in the middle of learning complex physics, which freaked the heck out of my professors because they’re like…
Kim: And is it true? If they say, “No, no, no, you cannot cross-stitch,” can you then learn the complex physics?
Amanda: My grades would fall by an entire letter grade when they wouldn’t let me cross-stitch in the lecture.
Kim: I wonder what my stim is. I’ve never really thought of myself as having a stim. Maybe I should ask my mother, who observed me, if I had a stim.
Claudie: What my stim is? Well, I think that being in computer science design, you need to be there. And there is a relationship between you and the device that I cannot see with other people. You’re creating through it. So I always used to doodle in class.
Kim: I was always drawing stuff. But it was always drawing something that other people could use. I was always drawing machines or cars or bikes or something useful. I had a passion for creating. So I wonder if my doodling was my stimming.
Amanda: I was telling my sister the other day, because she’s like, “I don’t have a stim,” and I’m like, “Honey, you have to knit.” She does these complex designs for power substations around the US, and if she’s not knitting…
Amanda: …she can’t design the power stations.
Kim: So, parents, if you’re listening… Sorry, Lita, what did you say?
Amanda: What did she say? She does… My sister just takes them off. She almost always takes them off, and she doesn’t know she’s doing it, which is really funny.
Claudie: She’s like, “I didn’t do that.” Isn’t it the definition of a stim that it’s kind of your brain doing it on autopilot?
Amanda: It is. And that’s the problem with her three-point tap move when she stims. She’s had teachers come up and say, “I’m going to fix her stimming,” and I’m like, “It’s not because her tap is not proper.” Or they’re saying she should stop the stimming altogether. It’s ever so slightly off depending on how stressed she is. And they’re like, “Well, let me fix it. Let me get that more on beat with the music,” or whatever. And it’s like… that’s not going to work. They’re like, “I know you said a stim is unconscious, but I can just fix her unconscious stimming.”
Kim: Have they tried, and did it work?
Amanda: It has not worked, and it usually gets her in trouble because she’s not fixing what she’s doing subconsciously.
Kim: OK, in my defense, I’m not going to fix… I’m saying if you talk to me like I’m a four-year-old child – no offense to any four-year-old children – how old are you, Lita? Just kidding. I want to talk a little bit more about this idea that stimming is a clue. We’ve looked at Lita’s example, we’ve looked at your example, Amanda, we’ve tried to find an example for me, talked about your sister’s example. In your world of advocacy, have you seen other kids stim, and you thought, “This kid has got a dance talent”?
Amanda: Well, one I will point out that’s become… He’s starting to get a lot more attention. There’s a kid in California who is always drumming his fingers on the table, the desk, wherever he was, and he is now writing full-fledged symphonies. His parents put him in front of a piano. He’s nonverbal, but he has now, in the last 12 months, premiered two separate symphonies.
Claudie: In Hollywood.
Amanda: Yeah, we were in Hollywood one of the times, and a bunch of her mentors came up and went, “Oh my gosh, did you hear about this autistic kid who’s now doing symphonies?” We’ve seen a lot of kids who are always turning or are up on their toes when they’re walking, or they’re tapping their foot with the beat, and they do become amazing dancers. But we’ve had a problem with parents. Like I said, we just did a podcast on “Let Your Kid Fly,” just listen to them and let them fly, because we’ve had a lot of parents go, “No, I don’t want them involved in these things,” not just because they want to get rid of the stim – which, a lot of these parents are like, “Let me suppress the stim” – but also because they don’t want to let go of their kid. I understand that, but give them five seconds to fly. But we’ve had a lot of the kids she knows in her international tap company who are autistic, and almost all of them, you’ll see them tapping in a corner and not even knowing it. Their mentors just do the same thing, too. I’m pretty sure if we tested as much back in my age as we do now, all of her mentors would be autistic.
Kim: Why do you think this is a big… this is a loaded question, and I don’t know where this will go, but do you think you have to be somewhat autistic to be exceptional?
Amanda: It is a loaded question, and I’m going to say yes. I know a lot of the big names in physics are all autistic. We’re here in Colorado today. Temple Grandin up at Colorado State University is textbook autistic. The developmental pediatrician who diagnosed her, he’s autistic. His son, well, is becoming a well-known neurosurgeon, who’s autistic. Most of my friends who are her godfathers are autistic. He’s one of the youngest diagnostic medical directors in history.
Claudie: Is it because of my autism? I’m like, probably.
Kim: Where do you… if we want to continue being, I want to say “political,” maybe slightly controversial or delve into some sensitive topics. I have a question that’s been on my mind for a while, and I’d like to ask you, how do you draw the line between, “This person is autistic, let them be, let them fly, and society will thrive, they will thrive,” and the child is actually extremely miserable, extremely uncomfortable, and their suffering is limiting their ability to process a whole lot of stuff. On paper, their brain is just as powerful as any other brain, but they can’t process, they can’t speak. So it feels to me like there’s a population that needs our help, and then there’s a whole bunch of people saying, “No, no, no, don’t help our kids, they don’t need to be fixed.” But there must be a line.
Amanda: I think there is a line. We put her in some severe occupational and speech therapy. She was going, at one point in time, five days a week to therapy because you need some help. I mean, even neurotypical people, if you didn’t need help, schools wouldn’t exist to teach you how to do things. I think you need to look at the therapies not as “fixing,” but as giving you the skills that you just don’t have yet, especially when it comes to speech or motor skills. I think where you do need to draw the line is as long as the stimming’s not hurting anyone, and most of the time it’s not. Or the looking people in the eyes – I still have trouble with it at 43. It’s never hindered my career to not look someone in the eye. There needs to be some give and take on what we consider something we have to fix and what is something that is helpful to give the child their best chance in life.
Kim: That made perfect sense. Thank you so much for explaining and helping clarify where the line is. I am done being controversial, for sure. Although I’m dying to ask a follow-up question, we’ll see how this goes. I want to ask about ABA. But let’s talk about someone with a PhD. You were in it for six weeks.
Amanda: Yeah, when the young ABA therapist who had been out of school for about two months tried to explain to me what a paper looks like.
Claudie: And I’m like, “I have a PhD in physics.”
Amanda: I think I may have seen one or two of those. No, that was a different one.
Kim: So, what’s your message? Now you’ve got this nonprofit, you’ve got this dance studio. What are you doing? What is your mission?
Amanda: Our mission is to bring dance to the autistic community, not as the adaptive dance it’s been, where like, Lita is good enough in dance that she can’t take the autistic classes, so they toss her into very large neurotypical classes, and then they go, “Oh, but you’re the autistic kid, go sit in the corner so I don’t have to deal with you while I deal with the neurotypical kids.” This has not just been at one studio; this has been at multiple studios across the country. Her dad’s military, we’ve had her in so many, we’ve talked to other parents of good autistic dancers who are like, “My neurodiverse kid is being tossed into classes of 15, 20, 25 kids and being expected to learn,” which… I’m not sure that works for the neurotypical kids. It definitely does not work for a neurodiverse kid. But on the other hand, dance is fun, and these adaptive classes, these autistic classes, are being designed primarily by neurotypical people who have a good heart, but they don’t understand autism. I know a couple of the studios here in town have decided that autism and Parkinson’s disease are the same thing. And so they have the Parkinson’s adults in with autistic kids, and they’re trying to teach the autistic kids based off the best ideas for Parkinson’s disease. It doesn’t work. Another studio, it’s autism and Down syndrome. They’ve decided they’re the same thing. We are utilizing, we’ve got some therapists we are talking to. We have at least one therapist on our staff. We are trying to design, not adapt, and we’re not saying, “You can’t do like if you are autistic or you are any of these amazing dancers, we’re not holding you back.” We’re going to give you smaller class sizes. We’re capping the class sizes at five kids because I need more kids to get through these classes. But we’re also…Oh, like for our lower level, for level three autism, and for preschoolers, we’re capping the class sizes at three kids, students per class.
Kim: You’re clapping the classes.
Amanda: I said “capping.” It’s going to be one of those days.
Claudie: We’re only going to have three students in the class.
Amanda: Because if you get more than three students in the class, these kids are easily getting lost. Also, I’m sure you’re aware, a lot of these autism programs stop at like 19.
Kim: It’s like autism goes away at 19.
Amanda: Our classes are going to 99. If I wind up having someone who’s 100, we’ll have a discussion on you coming into the studio. But we’ve had a lot of parents of adult dancers reach out and go, “Are you kidding? I need their classes now for my adult child.” We’re also doing… I have spent way too much time writing IEPs as an advocate. We decided it probably should work in the dance studio. So we’re doing dance IEPs, where we are bringing the parents in, and we’re saying if you want to bring your therapist in, whoever you want at the table, we need to actually come up with ideas for you. And some parents are like, “Well, what is it going to be?” And I’m like, “If your child’s three, maybe it’s that this year they are paying attention for five minutes of class by the end of the year. That I will consider a win, because dance should be fun. It doesn’t have to be as serious as Lita and some of the other kids are taking it.”
Kim: Right.
Amanda: Also, and it sounds weird because we’re in the community… The local autism classes, you have to be verbal, and you have to be potty trained. We’re going, “Fine, you don’t have to be potty trained.” Autism and potty training at three don’t go hand in hand. Verbal at three and autism… I mean, if you were completely verbal, you probably wouldn’t be diagnosed as autistic at three.
Kim: Would you welcome neurotypical children in your autism dance studio?
Amanda: Right now, we’re not, because there are 43 other dance studios here in our city alone that work with neurotypical kids.
Kim: And you’re saying there’s room for them over there, don’t take an autistic place.
Amanda: Well, because when we did… we are a 501(c)(3), so we had to tell the IRS what we were doing. We looked at the three supposed autistic dance studios in the country. They all have less than 18% of autistic dancers. So we were like, we’ve got to make sure this is specifically for the neurodiverse community. We are, however, working very closely with other studios in town. They’re kind of sending us their siblings of kids from their studios, going, “Hey, this kid’s autistic, I can’t handle them. Can they come over to your studio?”
Kim: I think there’s a lot to be said for having a safe space where… And I think in the future, if there’s a child whose siblings are over there, we will probably reassess at that point in time. But right now, our class sizes are so small and so limited because we don’t have our own space yet. So, I think we’re focused specifically on the autism community. We’re also in a military town, and our rates of autism are a lot higher. The general population is one in 36. In the military, three out of every five kids has autism.
Kim: What?
Amanda: Yeah.
Kim: Wow.
Amanda: My personal thought process on that, having been an advocate within the military, is that every adult with autism… It could be that, it could also be that the military attracts autism.
Kim: I want to know why Lita is so adamant that this is the case. What do you think, Lita?
Amanda: Everybody in her friend group turns out autistic. Everyone we test turns out autistic.
Kim: Do you like the military? Do you want to become a soldier or something like that?
Lita: Yeah.
Amanda: Her dad’s military, he’s currently deployed. So she’s got a lot of military guys in her life.
Kim: Yeah. Are they all annoying?
Lita: They are all annoying because they’re all guys.
Amanda: I think one of the things is, with TriCare, in order to get your normal services, they have to have that diagnosis. And once you get that diagnosis, the military doesn’t limit you on how long you can do speech therapy, on how long you can do occupational therapy, on how long you can do physical therapy. They’re just like, “Okay, let us know when you’re done.” But if you don’t have the diagnosis, it’s 18 months because it’s considered an educational thing.
Kim: OK. So, what are your hopes and plans for the future of your dance studio?
Amanda: I am hopeful that we can wind up having a full daytime course and a full evening course within the next two years. Lita’s wanting to put together a professional company of autistic dancers. One of the top trending… and she likes cake.
Kim: Is that going to be the name of the professional dance group?
Amanda: We were thinking puppies. We also are hoping to work really closely with the other studios in town to prove to them that we’re not trying to take their dancers. One of the reasons for not taking neurotypical kids is they’re seeing us as though we’re taking their dancers. And it’s like, no, we’re not. I really would like to see if this dance IEP that we’ve got a lot of professionals working with us on takes off, having individualized plans. And I’d like to see this go around the country and around the world, this idea of knowing what your dancers’ needs are before they enter your studio and being prepared to deal with them. I’d like to see this take off in other towns, especially with the over-18 crowd. We definitely need ways to socialize the over-18 crowd, where they can come together and do stuff. And I think those are my… And it would be nice to get rid of the hashtag on TikTok, “Autistic kids are always funny when they dance.” I would like to replace that with something else.
Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What would you like Lita to replace the hashtag with?
Lita: Puppy.
Kim: Professionals are under your nose, professing their proficiency at being international. I can’t fit dancing in there.
Amanda: I’m trying. I don’t know that it has to have dancing, but it would be nice to have a neurodiverse group that can go out and pretty much prove that people… There’s a lot of dance studios out there. While the entertainment world is filled with neurodiverse people, the dance studios themselves, these teachers are still very neurotypical and very black-and-white, thinking that other people are neurotypical. So, I think it would also be that idea that you can be neurodiverse and be autistic, and… I mean, Elon Musk has finally come out and acknowledged that he’s autistic.
Kim: Yeah.
Amanda: We sort of had guessed.
Claudie: Yeah.
Amanda: I mean, with having two autistic kids, it was probably a good idea that he was autistic. She thinks the Cybertruck looks like an armadillo.
Claudie: That was his idea.
Amanda: But yeah, I think it would be on the advocacy front to even convince some of these parents, give your kids a chance. It may not be dance, it could be skiing, it could be figure skating like your daughter. It could be… my nephew does Rubik’s Cube and is hoping to go to Worlds this year. But there is probably something your kid enjoys that will help them enjoy their life.
Kim: Yes.
Amanda: If that makes any sense at all.
Kim: Yes, and look at the stimming as a clue to explore something that could expand on this. I’m not saying that stimming has to be productive, that’s not what I’m saying. That’s not the role of stimming. In fact, maybe we can ask Lita to explain to all of us, why do you like stimming?
Lita: Well…
Kim: Sorry, I shouldn’t say stimming because stimming is a funny word. It’s got baggage, right? Parents, they’re going to come up with a different word, and I’ll come back to stimming later. But why do you tap uncontrollably? What does it feel like to you? Why do you like it?
Amanda: It just happens.
Lita: I don’t think she’s doing it
consciously enough to know that she should enjoy it.
Kim: I’ve heard people say, and I don’t know if it’s the case for you, Lita, that when they do it, it drowns out the rest of the world. Is this what it feels like for you?
Amanda: I don’t know, but we do stuff that people see that I never realize I do.
Kim: Never realize you do?
Amanda: I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know.
Kim: Amanda, you’re like, “I’m going to be my authentic autistic self and even nibble on my finger today.”
Kim: Does it hurt anybody?
Amanda: No.
Kim: There you go.
Amanda: I think definitely stimming should not be discouraged as long as it’s not hurting anyone.
Kim: Exactly.
Amanda: Even if it’s not leading to what your child loves, it’s probably helping them focus a tiny little bit better than when they weren’t stimming.
Kim: And if we can give them that, you know… I know a lot of kids who, that’s their only source of comfort. Everything else feels like a barrage of discomfort all the time.
Amanda: And it’s about what makes your kid happy, not what makes you feel like they fit into society.
Claudie: Mm-hmm.
Kim: That sounds like a good way to end the episode. Thank you for having not just found a way to help Lita be happy, but help all these other kids who come through your studio be happy. I wish you great success, and I think we should stay in touch and find out what the puppies’ dance group is going to do.
Amanda: Definitely, thank you for having us on today.
Claudie: That was wonderful. So, so nice. You’re great, Lita. I just can’t wait to see your videos.