Stereotypy (psychiatry)

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A stereotypy is a continuous, repetitive, purposeless or ritualistic movement, posture, or utterance, found in patients with mental retardation, autism spectrum disorders, tardive dyskinesia, and stereotypic movement disorder. Stereotypies may be simple movements such as body rocking, or complex, such as self-caressing, crossing and uncrossing of legs, and marching in place.^[1]

Some professionals who evaluate children with autism refer to stereotypies as stimming, based on the notion that that the role of stereotypies is self-stimulation.^[2] Stereotypy can involve the various senses, so a repetitive movement may be motivated by visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, vestibular or taste sensations.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Proposed causes of stereotypy 2 Treatment for stereotypy 3 Stereotypies in animals 4 Notes

[edit] Proposed causes of stereotypy

Research is ongoing to determine the cause, or more likely, causes of stereotypic behaviors. Some theories hold that the individual's nervous system is in a state of low arousal, or hyposensitivity, so the brain demands high levels of sensory input. Other theories propose that certain repetitive behaviors can actually provide a calming effect by blocking out the effects of overstimulation from the environment. For hypersensitive people, it may provide a "norming" effect, allowing the person to control a specific part of the world they perceive through their senses, and is thus a soothing behavior. Some autism researchers believe that self-injury behaviors in autistic children may be a form of stereotypy as the child derives pleasure from natural opiates released by the brain but does not experience the pain due to sensory integration dysfunction.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Treatment for stereotypy

Treatment options include replacing the repetitive behavior with a more socially acceptable behavior, exercise, or medications. Where sensory integration dysfunction is involved, sensory integration therapy may be used. When gauaged to be appropriate, some behavioral specialists allow a child to engage in self-stimulatory behavior as positive reinforcement in interventions such as Applied Behavior Analysis.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Stereotypies in animals

Stereotypies have also been reported in animals;^[3] for example, pacing behaviors by caged cats in zoos is described as a stereotypy,^[4] as are behaviors exhibited by sows in farrowing crates such as rocking back and forth and biting at the bars of the crate.^[5]

[edit] Notes