Stimming and support assemblages: autistic improvisation, sensory worlds and wellbeing

Autistic adults face entrenched stigma, discrimination and marginalisation across educational settings, employment and social life. Autistic-led research has highlighted the importance of centring lived experience in understanding autistic wellbeing. Stimming practices and other ways of using nonhuman supports are central to autistic identities yet are routinely pathologised. This article expands definitions of stimming to include multisensory, creative and affective engagements with things, places, creatures and digital supports. The analysis draws on qualitative interviews with Australian autistic adults, presenting four illustrative case studies that provide detailed overviews of how our participants used nonhuman supports for comfort, care and connection. Using feminist new materialism and critical disability/crip studies, we introduce the concept of stimming and support assemblages: dynamic entanglements of bodies, objects, environments and affects that open capacities for agency, regulation and flourishing. These assemblages illuminate the affirmative and creative dimensions of autistic life, offering directions for inclusive design of supports.