My son's teacher says that this a method of distracting himself, an imaginary type of play. But more often it is a method of avoidance in non-preferred activities, school assignments, when he would rather listen to music or play with the school leappad. She says we should try to eliminate it, gently take his hand and direct them elsewhere, like the DVD player, and play tickle games, or catch,or tag,giving him other options to focus on at times.
Sometimes he is just acting out favorite movies: Shrek, Toy Story, Muppets, etc. That is his only real speech, quoting those movies. He is 10 years old, but really a perpetual 3 yr old. T love him so much, he is a sweet boy. I will do everything for him.

It's common with many autistic kids. There's a couple of things you should be asking yourself. Does the stim get in the way of her learning and participating with activities? If the answer is yes, then the school and you should be developing programs to teach her that hand-play can only be done during these times and not during these times.

The other question is does hand-play cause her to be excluded from her peers or is disruptive to others. Again if the answer is yes. You and the school should be developing a solution.

I agree it is very normal and called stimming, and they ussually do it when they are nervous or trying to calm themselves down. I say this for children on the higher functioning side, and this can be eased by distracting them or changing their behaviour,but children on the lower functioning side do it to, but it is not easy to stop them from doing it because they do not respond to the same stimuli, or incentives. I have told people it is to really a bad thing, although I know a lot of parents do not want others to see their children doing this to bring on anmanted attention. I can tell you at this point I do not care what anyone thinks, but when my son does it I try to distract him by talking to him, or having him get me something to break the cycle, but my daughter does not ever stop no matter what you do.

My son plays with his hands too.

Our son did that for years and it wasnt until recently he noticed that other kids his age dont do it and he has relaxed about it. He only does it when stressed or in front of a new doctor. I am not sure it is normal but what is normal? For David it was a coping skill for him. Sometimes I played along and other times I would tell him it was not an appropriate time to use our hands.