Twirl

Because I have a friend in med school, I make her answer all my medical questions. She humors me and gives me answers, but she also includes the disclaimer that she is not a doctor yet and this is not actual professional advice. But we've been friend for a long time (about 15 years I think) and as much nonsense we talk with each other, we do have some interesting conversations about medical stuff (because I ask a lot of questions).

One day, we got on the subject of autism, and how the professor from my human sexuality class (of course I took that one) told us this story: After all sorts of unsuccessful therapies, this extremely autistic child was wrapped tightly in a blanket and then rolled around on the floor. Which sounds ridiculous, but basically, they overstimulated the kid. So when the kid sat up, he stays still for a bit and then focused on his parents, which he may have never been able to do. But the theory behind that is that the over stimulation righted something in his head. At least temporarily.

So she went on the tell me another similar theory. You know how you have 2 halves of your brain, and there are many connectors between them. And in autistic kids, the connectors don't connect and/or relay info like a normal brain does (and this is all my interpretation only). What the over stimulation did for that kid was that made the connections work or align correctly. And she asked, why do you think little kids spin around with their arms outstretched? They are essentially over stimulating themselves and getting things realigned in their head, weather it's the physical connection by shaking things into place or just getting the info between the halves. (still, just babbling medical gibberish here) Fascinating, yes?

And as smart as this conversation sounds, when she asked the rhetorical why do kids spin question, my out loud super grown up response was, "uh, 'cause it's awesome!"