Stimming is short for self-stimulatory behaviour. It generally refers to repetitive behaviour such as hand-flapping, rocking, spinning, repeating certain words or phrases and so on. Many autistic people do such things unconsciously when concentrating or when trying to distract themselves from excessive sensory stimulation.

It’s basically the autistic equivalent of the way some non-autistics doodle while on the phone or play with a pen, clicking and unclicking it, while lost in thought. Only, since more non-autistics engage in such behaviour it’s not considered unusual or given a specific name.

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