To be thinking my son might also have Tourette’s syndrome ?

[Opal93]

Not sure if this is the right place but I’ve been told IABU by several people and “it’s just his autism.” My son is six with ASD. He always has stimmed (hand flapping and spinning and twirling objects) and had echoalia, but in the last few months he has started doing things that are more like ticks. Examples are blinking and shrugging, throwing his head back, grimacing. They’re hard to explain but they aren’t like spasms or tremors, definitely more like a tick. I’ve met people with Tourette’s syndrome and as soon as he started this it’s what came to my mind that this is when I’ve saw it before, and it’s different to his usual stimming. I have done some reading and it says Tourette’s usually starts between the ages of 2 and 14, with around six being the most common age to show signs. It also says ticks such as repeating random words are worse when they are tired/distressed/or anxious and these tics definitely happen during these times. For example, when he was upset the other day he couldn’t stop shouting “rainbow!” I always put this down to echoalia. I want to take him to see about this but I worry I’ll be told what most others are saying, it’s just his autism as the repetitive behaviours are similar but it IS possible to have both ASD and Tourette’s. I just want to make sure he has all the help he possibly can get and I guess just want to know I’m not paranoid. Would be really grateful if anyone has any experience of this

Sounds like my sister’s boy. He was diagnosed as autistic when he was 6. From the age of 9 he started doing the same things that you’ve mentioned, flinging his head back, making odd noises, blinking hard … sister thought it was Tourette’s but nobody was interested. From the age of 10 he started shouting out “testicle punch” all the time. He sought again for diagnosis and he was finally diagnosed at 11. It’s progressed now to sniffing people all the time and he still shouts testicle punch all the time

No advice but this is interesting to me as I have a daughter with autism but she constantly repeats the same sentence over and over again all day, I have started to wonder about it as it’s all day and sometimes it can be “inappropriate” things like she is learning about puberty at school and she will constantly repeat things over and over again no matter where we are.