Are Repetitive Behaviors a Neurodivergent Trait?

The DSM uses the language, “restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior,” to describe and define autism, and “often fidgets with or taps hands or feet or squirms in seat” when describing the hyperactive part of ADHD. But are they traits, or just a byproduct of something else that is going on inside the mind and body?

In assessments, psychologists are looking for signs of a repetitive behavior such as stimming. Stimming and tics are currently considered a repetitive behavior trait. However, I often wonder if it is less of a trait and more an output of sensory overload.

While the research is still early, we are seeing that when employees with a high sensitivity to noise and smells become sensorily flooded more easily. Their sympathetic nervous system has become activated. They may be triggered more easily than the average person, and may even struggle more than the average person to re-regulate themselves. People cope and sooth themselves in different ways, and stimming is one way.

Vanessa Hughes has a thorough glossary where she describes stimming as “self-stimulating or self-soothing movements or vocalizations” and “natural human movements or vocalizations that are repetitive and within our conscious control.”

Looping, perseveration, and Echolalia are also terms that are clumped in with repetitive behaviors.

• Looping often shows up as repetitive questioning or rephrasing, driven by the need to resolve an unresolved thought or uncertainty.

• Perseveration is when someone displays an involuntary repetitive behavior or thought. Often associated with ASD and PTSD, it may be linked to one’s inability to shift their attention away from a phrase, or an implicit rule that they had coded incorrectly and an effort to find an explicit reality. All too often, perseverating is perceived as difficult or aggressive behavior.

• Echolalia means that a person would repeat words and phrases as a coping mechanism in social contexts. It relates more to words that the person heard.

There’s not much research about how this repetitive behavior traits plays out in adults, but I have observed something like it in my lived experiences.

When rock climbing, I am always looking at the route ahead for the next few holds to grab. With two hands and two feet, I feel very stable leaving only one of those to stretch higher, knowing that I have three great points of contact. Sometimes I can make progress with two points of contact, and with great strain I can use just one. Often, once I find a tiny toe hold, I can feel stable enough to put weight on that foot and reach the next part of the wall, and I am doing that most of the way up.

On a wall recently, I was moving my foot around looking for a comfortable place to put weight on, and then not finding it. I felt stuck. And it reminded me of the autistic “traits” of perseveration and echolalia.

My work is often unstructured and varied. Like a climber may see many courses to chart in the rock walls, I see the many paths in a strategy or a conversation. It’s time for process of elimination and I may ask a question to close some routes.

Closing a route allows for a more optimized allocation of cognitive, physical, and emotional energy, shifting that bandwidth to the remaining routes.

In the climbing example, should we go up that path with the mountain lion looking at us? From an outsider point of view, my question may seem strange and off target. In my mind, I am wondering if perhaps our noise will scare of the lion and that’s the best route. Occasionally that strange and off target question is the route we needed to take, or expands thinking of an even better route just to the right of the lion. But if that question is not answered directly and clearly, my bandwidth gets further stretched as I ponder how I failed to get the clarity I sought and if their indirect answer revealed more paths or a potential shortcut.

When I encounter ambiguity or when I sense that an important detail is just out of reach. My brain gets stuck on a loop, searching for the missing piece that feels essential for making progress.

If I ask a product leader why they chose to build for a consumer segment instead of a small business segment (SMB), they may answer about how great the consumer segment was. Yet, I didn’t get a sense of why they ruled out the SMB route. I suspect that there is a reason they didn’t choose it, but I also have a strong sense of why that market could be lucrative and how we can uncover the answer. Maybe I would rephrase as I failed to ask the question better, specifying why they didn’t like SMB. If they respond about why they didn’t pursue the Enterprise segment, I would find that I am likely losing interest in their answers, even though their response was valuable to hear. Maybe I would move backwards for a better view and jump around the edge of the question by asking about their methodology to uncovering their go-to-market strategy and the customer research behind that decision in hopes of eventually getting to my question. If the speaker throws new information at me without answering the initial question, I can hold space for more paths to chart for a few additional rounds, adding them to the list of hypotheses to test. Inevitably, however, my brain would fry and I would be unable to take in new inputs ideas, stuck on the original question of why they didn’t pursue the SMB segment. We are out of sync and I am slowly disregulating, triggering me to loop. From the outside, I am repeating myself, while on the inside I am struggling to hold onto a complicated and winding conversation because I have taken in too many inputs and have not narrowed my bandwidth!

No one is seeing the multitude of possibilities in the conversations, and I have volunteered taken on the burden because at times it is rewarding. Yet the worst thing about this trait is the hypocrisy of me asking a seemingly left-field question for clarity, but being unable to effectively hold space for too many left-field hypotheses.

When I am repeating a question, it’s as if I am climbing that wall and looking for a toe hold. My leg is dangling as I fail to find steadiness. I believe deeply in my body that if I had the answer to that one question, I could be steady enough for my hand to reach higher and achieve new points in the conversation.

For those who first encounter this trait, my effort to hold onto possibilities in the conversation can be seen as stubborn, rigid, or difficult … the exact opposite of my intent to be expansive.

I am stuck in the loop.

How does one get out? There seem to be two paths: seek closure or hit the eject button.

Too often at work, we are overloaded with things to do. Many get a dopamine hit from checking off a task or making a key decision.

When I am looping, it may be seen as a force against decision making. I’ve been experimenting with showing my work and asking for closure. To show my work, I would often use a whiteboard or pen and paper to draw out the conversation with all the decision points and areas that need more information. Doing this activity at times feels like I am feeding the anxiety. However, in high stakes situations with a patient team aware of the strength of my clarity seeking trait, it pays off. When I am able to map the different decision points and the broadening zone of possibilities, it allows others to realize that we need to slow down instead of moving full speed towards the next milestone.

A code word often helps me when I am stuck on that metaphoric wall looking for a toe placement.

In my past role as a VC, due diligence meetings with startup founders were a prime example. When a founder couldn’t provide the clarity I was seeking or had been coached to stick to their talking points, I would find myself looping. My questioning in search of this clarity could come across as stubborn, rigid, or even aggressive, even though my true intent was the opposite: I wanted to expand possibilities, uncover the critical details, and unlock the next step for the startup’s growth.

Thankfully, my team understood me. They didn’t see my looping as a flaw but instead understood that is how my brain works to solve problems. They knew that my search for clarity came from a desire to be thorough and make the best decisions. In moments where my looping had the potential for relationship damage, they had a simple yet effective intervention:

One of them would gently say, “Shaun, Tomato.”

That one word, Tomato, would be enough to snap me out of the loop, back down from my desire for clarity, and reduce any irreparable harm to the relationships we were building with the founders, investors, and CEOs that we partnered with. I would stand down, give the team space for their own explorations, toss the flawed conversation map away, and be able to listen and build a new map of the conversation. I no longer felt the desire to repeat words or seek clarity.

This kind of redirection & understanding didn’t happen by accident. It required openness, mutual trust, and a shared commitment to assuming the best in one another. When you know your neurodivergent traits and how they show up in the workplace, you can communicate them to your team in ways that build trust and foster collaboration. Likewise, when coworkers take the time to understand these traits, they can provide feedback that feels supportive rather than critical, and the entire team benefits. This doesn’t mean masking one’s challenges; it means addressing them constructively.

For many who are flooded by inputs and data, a repetitive behavior may be more physical. It could look like biting their nails or twirling their hair, or picking or scratching their skin. It could be clearing of the throat or wringing of the hands. To the outside, these look like weird behaviors. But once we know what these are, we can see them struggling to find that foothold and approach them with greater empathy.

Having a team who “gets it” helped me navigate my neurodivergence in work situations. I’ve learned to rely on the mental equivalent of "foot holds" to feel steady. A foot hold can be a moment of clarity in a complex situation or a de-escalation of sensory inputs.

If you are a leader of people and teams, try to understand how your employees cope with being sensorily flooded and ask what has helped them in the past. Maybe offer them your own version of “tomato.”

If this post resonates with you, let's connect! 👋 BrainTypes helps you bring these ideas into your workplace. Reach out to Shaun to explore how.