I have a good friend that I have long suspected is somewhere along the autism spectrum. He has numerous tics or stims. He does seem to be able to control these behaviors to some extent, because if I look at him while he's doing it, he gets embarrassed and stops.

One stim in particular I'm pretty fascinated with. He flicks his fingers rapidly back and forth, so rapidly in fact, that it sometimes makes a humming or buzzing sound. I've searched YouTube for anything like this and have found some videos of young children moving their fingers slowly back and forth, but I've never seen any videos of rapid flicking. I just wondered if anyone here has encountered a stim like this.

I'm also wondering if there's been any link shown between autism and meningitis. I know he was hospitalized with meningitis when he was a baby.