Tourette's and self harm, 7 years old

[mermalaid]

Hi all. I'm a Newbury looking for advice. My 7 year old dd apparently has Tourette's. Having always had ticks, which have become more complex and concerning in the past year. She also appears very impulsive, struggles with her social skills, and doesn't seem to gel easily with other children. She's also very clever, doing well at school, and has a most remarkable imagination. The tics have caused problems at school, but school are very supportive. The teacher, dd and I all spoke to her class about Tourette's. We're going to GOS tick clinic.

But the reason I'm posting is great concern around a behaviour she'd developing which might or might not be related to the Tourette's. She hits herself. She slaps her own face, and has now started pinching herself. She appears to laugh and find this funny, but also tells me it really hurts her. She said she does it because she's embarrassed, and sometimes because she's angry with people. As far as I know she's always doing it in the presence of others. And it appears that she is wanting others to respond, although when I do it just seems to increase.

I'm at a loss. Has anyone else experienced anything similar with a child with Tourette's? Or a child without? I don't think it's a tick, but don't know if it's related ? Is it self ha? Self-injurious behaviour? A cry for help? Or just plain attention seeking?

Didn't explain fully - she slaps her face, and pinches her cheeks. Have also seen her hitting the back of her hand and occasionally slap other areas, but not with same frequency or intensity

Anyone ?

bumping this for mermalaid, hoping that some of the parents who are doing ABA might be able to help. If you don't get any joy mermalaid, try re posting this with a different title.

Also bumping for you. I'm afraid I have no experience of this, but hope somebody might come along who does.

The only thing which I could think of (and I'm sure you know this already) is to try and find alternative, more appropriate ways for her to let out her feelings. The 'behaviourist' theory would be that all behaviour has a function - if this is for attention, then as you say, responding to it will increase its frequency. The classic way to reduce/eliminate stims in children with ASD (not the same of course but anyway) is to find replacement activities or means of communication, and reinforce those replacements. So, eg if she's angry and does the hitting and you think it is definitely connected to the anger, you would ignore the hitting, but when she's calmed down, then talk to her about it and suggest that next she does xyz (eg hitting a cushion or something). Then, next time you see anger bubbling, give her the cushion/replacement, and if she uses that rather than hits herself, you give her lots of attention for that.

That is only one pov though, and is coming from an ABA perspective, so feel free to ignore if it is irrelevant! And as I said, I only have exp of ASD, not Tourette's so may be way off the mark. Good luck in any case.

Thanks all. Excuse my ignorance but what's ABA stand for? She has now intentionally but her own tongue and drawn blood? Was in bed, no fuss, no arguments, no upset. Came downstairs and showed me her bleeding tongue, like it was a trophy?