autism and tourettes?

[HecateTheCrone]

is there a tourettes, erm, trying to think of the word - element? to autism?

Am just thinking of all the tics, verbal and physical, that my boys have and that appear to be compulsions. they seem totally unable to control them.

my youngest in particular, is constantly beeping or squeaking, making odd noises and jerky movements. This is part of autism I know, but it seems to have a lot in common with tourettes.

Now he is compulsively saying fuck and yesterday he beeped and said "stupid bastard" in the park in front of LOADS of parents of kids at his school. I wanted to drop through the floor.

I tell him off, he says sorry.

Or more often, he says "sorry. motherbeeepK mario" or something.

is it part of the autism, is tourettes part of autism, is it tourettes AND autism, is it stimming, is it something else entirely?

and more importantly, how can I stop it? I ignore all the other things, always have. eventually he moves on to another tic which he indulges in compulsively but I cannot ignore it while he walks down the street yelling motherfucker!

And we do NOT use that kind of language and his laptop has net nanny and he is supervised and I do not want people thinking we are the type of people to use such language!

and yes, I do type the odd swearword on here, but I never swear out loud unless I've broken a toe or something! so it's not like we are conversationally effing and blinding.

Hi Hecate. I know tourettes and ASD can be co- morbid. i.e. You can get both at the same time but where the crossover is, I don't know. My DS2 has got lots of odd stims but they don't look like tics to me. His echolalia is repetitive and seems unintentional but again, not like the grunts and exclamations that I associate with tourettes. Hopefully someone else will be a bit more helpful.

Hi Hecate

I was worrying about my sons tics increasing recently, so did a little bit of research about Tourettes. As Ellen said, it can be co-morbid to ASD and the margins between ASD tic-ing and Tourettes can be blurry.

I came across the Tourettes Action website which was very useful.

As far as I can tell, to get a dx of TS you have to have had several motor and at least one vocal tic that have persisted for over twelve months and not had a break for more than three months at a time.

My son is 10. Diagnosed with autism (high functioning- not genius but good communication/verbal/developing a kooki little sense of humour)and as of last October, diagnosed with OCD as a co-morbid condition. I can see how his fastidious lining up of stuff and needs for things to be "just so", from a toddler age, lends itself very nicely to OCD.

We as a family are non-swearers though privately I am of the opinion that only certain words (blasphemous) are apt in certain situations. BUT, as testament to the success of my "not in front of the children" ethos, my son has never been heard to swear.

Until now.... And, he never heard to swear, as such, even now. He thinks of these words and wonders, has he said them aloud? If he's thinking them, is that as bad as saying them? He feels he'd really like to say the "f" word, would that be bad?

It's funny. And it's heart breaking and I dread the day we're in polite company and he comes out with "fuck me, mater, what are you doing?"

His psychiatrist and CBT therapist feel that many of these co-morbids come into play at times of stress and that it's only the kids who wouldn't normally say these things, might feel compulsively driven to say these things. If you see what I mean.

My son's teachers and generally anyone who knows him comment on his exceptional good manners, his thoughtfulness and his helpfulness and yet....he convinces himself that he needs to be punished for having "bad thoughts" about all of the above.

On one of his CBT counselling sessions, he was encouraged to say the words....shit, bloody, for God's sake, crap etc as a way of saying them and being shown that, nothing horrendous would happen and that if he wanted to, he could say them in his head, to himself.

It's a mystery...those ASD neurotransmitters are just wired differently.

thanks v much.

I did suggest a meeting with the school to see how we might be able to handle this. obviously we can't have him using foul language at school, but when you see him you see clearly that he really can't control it. he gets very upset when you tell him off but he will finish his apology by saying it again! So possibly the 'stress' of being told off about it triggers it?

He is being pushed harder at the new school than he was at the old school. Maybe this is stressing him out and resulting in more 'comforting' behaviour. That's what they reckon the stimming is about, isn't it? self stimulating / comforting?

He isn't able to express himself well enough to participate in any sort of counselling, which is a shame, sounds like it may help him. But his speech is limited to expressing his immediate needs and some talk of games he likes. He can't / won't talk beyond that.

I wish I knew what to do.

You need professional help on this. My son's CBT has gone about as far as it can at the moment because of his autism but..... yes, STRESS = INCREASE IN COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOUR. My son doesn't want to be crawling around the bloor at 3am checking his wires aren't touching and worrying that he may have said the "s", "f" or "c" (crap) words.

He HAS to do it. He is stressed ++++++++++

Please get some professional help from GP.

"crawling around the floor" !!

Hi

Tourettes is said to be on the 'spectrum' of asd... I have also heard talk on the biomed forums about tourettes being related to strep and in particular a condition that is just being recognized called PANDAS. Off to google more. Back in a minute :)

J x

Hi jg3kids, that is really interesting stuff - just did a bit of googling on it myself.

I've never heard of PANDAS, but my son has had recurrent strep infections since he started nursery at the age of 3.5, he has had scarlett fever several times and the doctors are stumped, as you aren't supposed to get it more than once. It got to the point where he had pretty much permanent strep throat and his tongue was constantly bright red and covered in huge lumps and welts.

He had his last strep infection in the early autumn of 2010 and his tics started at around the same time!

Such a balancing act though, the treatment is pretty major and that's if you could get a doctor to listen to you and even consider that it could be PANDAS.

Interesting though that the frontline advice is to improve gut health, remove all processed foods and sugars etc, give good quality probiotics and a really healthy balanced diet. More and more stuff around neuro-health is starting to advocate this approach, as it reduces inflammation in the body and helps to heal the guts, which are fundamental in maintaining a good immune system and of course reducing leaky gut type problems relating to the blood brain barrier.

Defintely food for thought - thank you for posting that.

yes. Thanks v much.

thanks to all. I'd be lost without the good advice and knowledge of the people on here!

How timely is this? Yesterday in the new scientist online issue no 2795 on page 31-33 there is an article about pandas but I can't copy and paste here though. Sorry.

Yes moose is all very interesting. I remember as recently as 5 years ago we were told autism is genetic, go away and get on with it. Now even the hardliners are conceding that environmental triggers feature.

Jane

I'm on another thread atm where someone is saying that a new report claims that early intervention in autism means nothing.

- to the report.

what's the betting the government latch onto that in order to do away with early years funding and statements for the under 10s

if it wasn't them who commissioned the study in the first place...

Hecate, I wouldn't worry, its only one study against thousands which all agree that early intervention is obviously the best course of action. Early intervention is accepted as the right course of action the world over, I don't think our government would be able to argue effectively against it.

Its basically the 'teaching an old dog new tricks' analogy. You can do it, but its much easier to teach a young dog in the first place.

As for Wiki - not the most reliable source of information on the web.