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Behaviour/development

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Verbal tics?

4 replies

LifeTooShort · 01/01/2014 19:31

DD2 (a twin aged 3) has been a chatterbox since the day she was born.

This may be irrelevant but she was 2 months premature and vetilated at birth, hospitalised with bronchioltis when she was 10 months, has asthma and suffered with endless chest infections.

In the last few weeks she has developed a series of what I can only describe as verbal tics. She repeats phrases to herself sort of under her breath but just loud enough to hear. It is usually: "just one more time" several times in a row and is often followed by a series of sharp tongue clicks.

I have avoided drawing attention to it and have asked her just once who she is talking to and she said "you, mummy" and went back to concentrating on Dora the Explora. It seems to happen mainly when she is sitting quietly i.e. tv time, meals or in the car, rather than when she is active.

Once when she was doing it I said "Love ya DD" just for reassurance and she said "Love ya Mum" and then kept saying it instead of "just one more time".

Does anyone have any idea what this might be? Is it a phase she will grow out of? She stuttered for a while which I was worried about at the time but is passed. Does she need to see someone about this? It has been going on for 3 or 4 weeks.

OP posts:
ThreeBeeOneGee · 01/01/2014 19:39

Mine get transient tics when they are tired or anxious. Throat clearing, humming, blinking, shrugging. It's like transient tic bingo here. Is there anything that could be causing her anxiety?

Ferguson · 01/01/2014 19:43

I would guess only a phase. 3 or 4 weeks isn't very long; if it went on for months, or increased significantly maybe look into it then.

LifeTooShort · 01/01/2014 21:16

I am not aware of anything that would be causing anxiety. She's done a couple of 4+ assessments recently (ridiculous I know!) but we did it in a very low key way i.e. we're going to play at big school and see if you like it. Both schools found her to be confident and keen to learn and offered her places. It was back in October and the mumbling didn't start for a few weeks after that.

OP posts:
ThreeBeeOneGee · 01/01/2014 21:52

I think that starting school could potentially be a bigger deal for her than you realise. The repeated phrases sound like her way of reassuring herself.

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