Going with the flow: reconsidering ‘repetitive behaviour’ through the concept of ‘flow states’

In the literature on autism, there is less written on repetitive and ritualistic behaviours than on the social and communication aspects of autism. What is written on the subject is often rather negatively construed in the sense that such behaviour is viewed as negative and interventions have been designed to reduce or stop such behaviours. In this chapter, the authors take a different view and suggest that often behaviours such as lining up, checking the order of things or playing computer games have a positive effect on a person’s physical and psychological state and give a sense of achievement. They argue that such activities may help to achieve a flow state, as defined by Csikszentmihalyi (1990), where a person is so immersed in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. Against this, they point out that some repetitive activities may cause distress and that staff and parents need to ask how the person seems when engaged in the activity (eg how do they appear when engaged in the activity? Are they calmer after the activity?). This chapter is likely to lead parents and staff to develop a different perspective on repetitive and ritualistic behaviour, and so also to build different responses to these.