How To Stop Humming
June 6th, 2009 by srolfe
Yesterday I sent out a brief email asking for your feedback, for your questions and concerns and within moments I had my first question back… so here goes.
“I have a question regarding loud humming noises. From what I know it is typical for kids with autism to humm. I have a child that does it all the time. Do you know about any strategies that might help lower the pitch of the humming or for the humming to fade away. I would really appreciate any help that you can give me.”
Humming is often a stimming behaviour. That is a self stimulation. It is the child’s way to soothe themselves. Much in the way we listen to music in the car, or curl up in bed with a book to relax, your child’s humming does the same thing.
Some articles have shown that a gluten free, casein free diet helped alleviate the humming, so this may be something you want to try.
Another article, and something I can attest to is music therapy. Your children obviously likes music to some level or they would not hum. Try playing some different music to them. My children love the “Baby Einstein” DVD’s and will often hum those songs afterwards. A word of caution you may find a few songs that drive them a little crazy. I myself purchased the entire DVD set, and so am able to quickly decide between the ones they like and don’t like. I suggest somewhere like eBay to purchase these at a lower cost. (I have a wholesaler I can get them from as well, if you cannot get them, costs about $50 USD for all 24, just drop me a line and let me know.)
Hopefully that helps a bit, and if any other parents have some words of wisdom, pass them along and I will be sure to pass it onto everyone.
Posted in Autism Care, Autism Experience
September 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Have you tried humming back at them? I use to fight my sons wierd habits. Now I use them to try to connect with him. If he is in my lap and humming I hum back, and I do it at a level I would like to hear it. If he rocks on the floor I rock with him. Going into my sons world has really paid off for us as a family. Me and him now have a deeper bond, and as I try to go into his world, he starts to come into mine more. We use to be afraid to leave the house because if you let go of his hand for a second he would bolt. But now its much different. And we get to enjoy things together as a family , I wasnt sure we would ever be able to do. The greatest advice I ever got about my autistic son was.. You got to get into his head.
November 26th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
My guys hum a lot, and loudly. Sometimes it is just because they like to hum while they play but other times it’s a coping mechanism. When that’s the case we try to figure out what is stressing them out and remove that (or remove them from the situation) then they may be less inclined to hum. I read somewhere that humming in particular can be a way to tune out sounds that are too loud, and I think that is the case with my boys sometimes.
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:26 am
AS per the note above we found that my son stopped humming with the introduction of a GCF diet. We then started to reintroduce certain dairy products one at a time. We have found that he can tolerate cetrain foods but not others. We have repeated this over and over agin with the same results. For example one brand of the same type of cheese will start him humming but he can eat another brand without any humming. Introduce the other brand even hidden in cooking and the humming will start within an hour or so. We have repeated this at least 10 times and the results are the same.