Do you have an autistic child (or three) who won’t stop humming? Read on to learn why they do this and the best ways to handle this behavior.

Why do autistic children hum?
Humming is a verbal stim, which can occur even in non-speaking autistics. The act of speaking is a neurotypical and hearing concept, so the expectations are null in relation to autistic people.
Not every autistic person hums or engages in verbal stimming. Every autistic person hums for their own reasons, but here are three specific reasons that may be the cause.
1. They’re creating their own white noise.
The sound of white noise (or pink, brown, etc.) is crinkly and loud. Your child could listen to ambient noises, but maybe it’s not the right kind of sensory input right now.
There might be a sound in your child’s environment that they need to drown out. They could also just be self-regulating in the way that works best for them.
2. There’s a song stuck in their head.
Ever have a song stuck in your head, but you don’t know the name? Or you do, but you don’t want the entire sensory input of the song?
Humming and listening to a song are two totally different activities, and types of stimming. Verbal stimming (humming) isn’t the same as auditory stimming (listening to a song). This matters, because one type of stim might not be the right kind of sensory input at the time.
Trying to listen to a song anyway, instead of humming, may cause an autistic meltdown.
3. They’re fulfilling a sensory need.
Sometimes, verbal stimming is a form of echolalia. It fulfills a sensory need by stimulating the parts of their throat that hum, creating a vibration effect, or causing the sound alone.
How to stop your autistic child’s humming stim
When I’m content or stressed, I’ll hum. I find less or no humming worse, because it means I’m so stressed that I can’t even handle an otherwise basic stim. Humming is one of my biggest stims, next to rocking and swaying.
Stimming is short for self-stimulatory behavior, a crucial need for autistics and similarly neurodivergent individuals. Stimming is a form of self-regulatory behavior, which is necessary to cope in everyday life.
To stop a safe stim because you find it irritating or embarrassing in public is to remove from your child their ability to cope and fill a need.
If you prevent your autistic child from engaging in safe stims, they will seek harmful stims.
Devon Price of “Unmasking Autism” found that sensory overloaded and/or stressed out autistic people participate in more self-harm stims and behaviors. These behaviors are regarded as negative ones that need to stop immediately, but then the autistic person is left with no other option.
Self-regulatory behaviors are how people cope. Non-autistic and neurotypical people stim, but you hear less about it because they don’t talk about anything that makes them weird. It’s just a thing that people do.
Autistic people NEED to stim
Abuse is defined as improper usage or treatment of something, coming in many types of aggression, including micro ones.
Neurodivergent people need to stim. It’s a coping method. Take it away, and you’re taking away a key part of their well-being.
Per autistic culture, removing an autistic person’s ability to stim — whether by strapping them down to a table, making them sit on their hands, or disciplining them for doing it in the first place — is considered abuse. For autistic people who have experienced both, they liken the act to rape (among other forced actions towards autistics).
In middle school, my CD player and computer were taken away because I was grounded from music. I didn’t listen to bad songs. Stim dancing and singing/humming were my biggest stims at the time.
Getting those things taken away traumatized me and put me into such a depressive state that my mother took me to a psychiatrist for exhibiting suicidal behaviors. She thought I was being dramatic. The psychiatrist explained that a preteen’s connection to the world is highly dependent on their coping mechanisms.
Take away a human’s ability to cope, or preferred method of coping, and you remove their hope to survive.
In 2013, a therapist worked with me to develop a strategy for when I began idealizing suicide. Every single strategy was a type of coping method. You learn how to find the will to survive with coping mechanisms.
If you take away an autistic’s child’s intricate need — like their special interest or stimming capabilities — you will also remove their will to continue life in a healthy manner. You will not develop a secure relationship with your child.
Your child will learn to mask their neurodivergence, trauma and pain. They will grow up with internalized ableism, annoyed at everyone, and having extremely low self-esteem.
I know, I know — this sounds dramatic. Surely it’s just attention-seeking behavior!
If that was how autism worked, then autistic burnout and autism masking wouldn’t exist. Autistic adults would not be estranging their parents/caregivers. We wouldn’t wish we were someone else so our families would understand, love and empathize with us.
It’s not dramatic. Please don’t stop your autistic child’s humming. It’s how they express themselves, and expression is one of the purest forms of communication.
Click here for a free PDF printable checklist of the 7 steps to take when your child needs residential treatment.

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