New Problem - DS has a tic

Our son(comletely nl medical hx) LD, now in 7th grade, had throat clearing tics and made odd little noises(softly) on and off from 3rd-5th grade, directly related to the stress of learning to read and keeping up in school. We ignored them, and counseled the school to ignore them, and as his skills improved, and we took him out of special ed. they went away. Tics come and go in childhood, and even now in times of stress he does have some odd mannerisms with his hands, but they are unnoticeable to others and his friends could care less. As is typical of tics, he never noticed them himself… I really think they were for him related to anxiety. He also went thru a period of not stuttering, but getting stuck on phrases and repeating them; it went away too and never came back. Unless your son is on ritalin or another stimulant, ignoring might be the way to go.

Thank you for sharing that information about your son. It helps knowing that other LD kids have these quirks as well. Sometimes I feel like my son is the only one.

Ironically, my completely neurotypical daughter had a eye blinking tic for about 6 weeks when we moved this past summer. We had no problem ignoring it , b/c with her we weren’t worried about it being the tip of the iceberg, and we knew what was stressing her out.

With my son, things have been going so well its a bit of a shock. To think he struggled thru 3rd grade last year under so much stress and didn’t get a tic, but now that he’s in a great school he gets one!

SAR - quick question - did your son make noises to go along with his playing? My son still vocalizes (boy noise we call it) when he plays action figures, legos etc. Sometimes when he’s fantasizing about a video game or something like that he’ll make noise too.

Karen,

My daughter, who in not LD, had a pretty noticeable facial tick for almost a year when she was about 6. I have no idea why and our pediatrician relatives counciled us to not worry about it. At that time, I didn’t know enough to think it could be indicative of anything else. My sister-in-law told me that transitory ticks are very common in childhood and not to be concerned unless it lasts more than a year. Hers stayed about the same for about six months and then decreased in frequency.

I have noticed when I am under extreme stress I will get a tick. But as far as we could see, there was no stress component to my daughter’s tick.

Beth

Karen,
I too have read that ticks are pretty common for kids at one point or another. I agree with everyone else that it’s best not to worry about it now unless it becomes a bigger issue.

I know, its hard not to worry about this kid. Just keeps me on the edge of my seat. I’m sure this tic will go away, but I think he’s got other tic like behaviors that fall short of being real tics. So of course I’m afraid this is the start of some new problem ….Thanks for the words of encouragement!

Don’t worry — I come from a BIG family with LOTS of tics — one cousin and my one sister are the most unusual, with many little tics and compulsions that cycle, disappearing and reappearing, and my son has many also, especially in times of stress. I think that this is much more common than we realize, unless you are ‘ticcish’ as we are, and therefore notice these things in others! (Watch people carefully — more common than you think!)

I have a close friend wiht a tourettes child — DON’T worry! If it was more than ‘ticcishness’, you would KNOW! He did not have a few little tics — beginning in SK, it was CONSTANT and OVERWHELMING…you would know by now that soemthing more was happening.

As one poster mentioned, IF your child is on stimulants, speak to the prescibing physician — some meds can exacerbate tics, or accentuate them — but there are choices that don’t either.

Otherwise, relax and ignore — it makes it worse to try to suppress them. Adults who are ticcish, or with tourettes, often have success in changing a tic to something less noticable, but this might be too stressful for a child. My cousin’s son DID have to do this when verbal tics were getting him in trouble tho, and did it pretty successfully — as mentioned above, he was not aware of the humming and singing, and needed a sympathetic teacher with a secret cue to help him change to whispering. This was Gr. 5.

It is interesting to me that my son has one tic identical to one of my cousin’s which was very noticable during childhood — blowing on his knuckles — I kinda get nostalgic when I see this one!

It’s so hard to relax when things start going well – takes years I think!

Elizabeth-

We noticed that when he plays gamecube it seems to exacerbate the tics, so we are disconnecting it. (there will be he** to pay tonight!)

Just wondering if your family ever noticed this connection, or any other triggers.

Thanks!

My son had a tic with one eye shooting out. It would come and go. It really scared me and was one reason I pursued VT.

It hasn’t happened in since VT.

He will still occasionally play and make noises but does it much less than he once did. I do try to discourage it because I read somewhere on one of these sites that you should. It is just inattention city as far as I am concerned and he needs to spend his time practicing attending and not practicing being out in la la land.

He is much more apt to pursue activities that require his attention like reading, working on his baseball card collection piano etc.

That’s interesting Linda, b/c the tic started as a very small eye movement that I thought was related to VT. Maybe it is. Who knows.

We try to limit the la-la land , skip around making noises playing too, mostly so he doesn’t get too obsessive about it. One of the reasons we want to try to figure out the triggers for this tic is that I do think his brain holds onto behavior more than your average brain. He gets stuck in paterns of behavior that he can’t break on his own, but always responds well to intervention. That makes ignoring it tough.

karen,

I think the advice to ignore is to not worry too much and not to call attention to the tics. But if you see clear patterns of what seems to trigger the tics, then I’d certainly try to modify the circumstances, if possible. With my daughter, I never saw any pattern. But when my son was younger, he’d get locked into behaviors. He still does sometimes. I think it goes along with LD in some way. We learned to manage him by avoiding certain types of circumstances and heading off things before the lock in occurred.

Beth

KarenN>, I don’t think tics(which are involuntary motor and or vocal) and perserverative behaviors are specifically part of LD; I do see them as part of the pervasive dev. disorder/autism/NVLD spectrum though. I would ask at school or privately to have a behavioral psychologist evaluate the” la-la “off-task behaviors and give you some recommendations.

Well afaik actually tics and ADD can go together (not ld though— though since ADD and ld often go together…). Also tics can go with AS, but also AFAIK isn’t any higher prevalence than ADD and tics.

Of course not all tics are Tourettes’ syndrome and eye tics are often “nerves”, and then of course all Tourettes is not equally severe. Some are so mild they are never dxed.

—des

Sar and Des - you are both technically correct from what I understand. Antecdotally (here and other places I chat parents of kids who are LD) it seems like a lot of kids with LD are tic -prone.

My son used to seem alot more NVLD than he does now, but then again at some point or another I think every acronym possible has been put on the table. Our neuropsychologist and his psychiatrist, as well as a few other psychologists that know him, have declined to dx him with anything other than LD/slow processing. He’s prone to anxiety, inattention, perseverative behavior, but there’s never enough of it to warrant a diagnosis. We are hoping the tics play out the same way. They seem to be easing up.
Thanks!

KarenN: I have never seen tics specifically in relation to video games in my family but it makes sense. As SAR said, there are tics — involuntary muscle twitches etc., and little ‘compulsions’, patterns of behaviour — we have both. One cuz is more ‘ticcish’ and he would often twitch while concentrating — we were big frog catchers as kiddos and made big coin selling to fishermen at a local lodge — he was the BEST at catching frogs. He has one eye that is a bit different, and had a tic in the eyelid — this would often happen while he was stalking, staying still waiting to pounce. Perhaps something about the intense concentration and eye focus about video games makes the tic come out – interesting.

It sounds like you have a really good attitude to this ‘stuff’ — I also said ignore as in ‘don’t worry, don’t stress’ but it is of course necessary to help him get out of a cycle, especially if he is ‘stuck’ or obviously in ‘la la land’. I agree that we should not allow too much ‘zoning out’ without purpose. If we don’t model how they can use positive action to help modify their less desirable behaviours when they are young, how can we expect them to help themselves when they are older? Or even know what ‘people usually do’ enough to be successful in the adult world?

I don’t agree that you need further ‘professional help’, it sounds like you have plenty! I am always very concerned that sometimes these things are taken way TOO seriously — if a child is already DX’d LD and seeing appropriate specialists, etc, I think you can relax. Having been a ‘conundrum kid’, I am always a bit paranoid about the messages children get from adult attitudes to ‘weird’ or ‘less usual’ behaviours — sorry, just an ‘us vs them’ baggage sort of thing!

You are wise to look at the triggers tho — if we understand the cause of something, we can work to avoid triggers or learn how to minimize negative consequences — maybe the tic IS from video overload, and a few days unplugged will help. I think it’s important to at least follow your instinct and check it out! He may not like it, but you need to know — no specialist can help more than an informed, involved parent who is watching carefully for negative outcomes. (and has appropriate professionals at hand if they run into something they can’t handle!)

It doesn’t hurt ANYONE to learn that moderation is a good thing, that we must strive for balance in our lives and activities, or that we sometimes have to do hard things when we don’t want to, for our own good — he may hate it but he’ll care for your grandkids the same way, so YOU GO GIRL!

Most of the time when DS checks out its to create narratives in his head for video games he would like to write. The weirdest thing he does is skip around the room acting out/ thinking about these games. His psychiatrist said sometimes kids like him just need to do that and as long as he can stop when he needs to we shouldn’t worry.

Mel Levine talks about letting “different” kids persue their passion, so I also feel that we should honor his interest in creating video games. Who am I to say he won’t be the next Bill Gates? Its a balancing act between encouraging him to be well rounded and flexible, and valuing his special gifts.

Since the tics seem to be decreasing in severity and aren’t accompanied by an increase in other involuntary behavior, ds’s psych. thinks we should wait and see. So that’s the plan right now.

We definitely have family tics. I have a bunch of cousins that all stick out their tongue when doing something difficult like taking a shot in basketball. My dad has a few tics like blinking his eyes and tightening his fists, I have seen my nephew do this.

I agree that moderation is the key. I think I need to qualify my last statement. I never critisize his imaginary play but rather just say, “Hey, why don’t you play me a song on the piano.” or I will ask him to play backgammon with me. There was a time when he could spend all day in la la land and I just want him to join the rest of us.

Karen,

Despite my son’s dysgraphia, I have always thought he would be a great writer some day. He has the ideas but is missing the practical skills. It was interesting to me that you brought that up.

Linda,
I knew what you meant about bringing your son out of La-la land. We do it too .

We’ve seen in many areas of his development a tendency to get stuck in a pattern, but as soon as we provide a way out he can take it. I think its fundamentally a self regulation issue - he’s delayed, but not completley without, the ability to regulate himself - and he always has been. This was a kid that woke up every 45 minutes as an infant until we “ferbered ” him. Then he slept thru the night immediately. Same thing with staying dry through the night. He couldn’t do it until we used a bedwetting alarm for all of 2 nights. Instant success.

That’s why I’ve unplugged the game cube for now. I feel like if I can help him break the tic pattern he’ll be fine.

PS when you start really examining your family you do discover that many members have tics, quirks, etc.

I like your psych’s attitude — I think your GFG (ds) is in really good hands!
I repeatedly rant (to myself or those who love me and will listen) ‘I am NOT raising a school principal, accountant, lawyer, doctor, architect…I am raising an ARTIST…whether he works at McD’s to support his art or is lucky/talented/hardworking enough to work as an artist, he IS an artist…when it comes to math, artists need LIFE skills to a grownup level, but we don’t expect them to do trigonometry! (tho some artists excell at it…I doubt mine will!)

See, I don’t call ‘storythinking’ zoning out, I call it ‘story thinking’ — but I agree that there is a time and a place for storythinking…I also say to friends that I have trouble thinking like a teacher cuz I know alot about kids, similar to a teacher — but I THINK like a Cub leader (read: Kid who didn’t grow up quite…) and that is totally different. I have long ago decided that ‘ADD’ is when a child CAN’T stop storythinking, even if they want to…does this make sense, PattiM?

Our most important task, and the reason PARENTS must be ‘in charge’ of decisionmaking for their children’s education, is to develop the potential within each child. You don’t get to choose the potential — and sometimes it’s hard if your kid is really different from what you are/what you expected — but then again, they don’t get to choose to be born!

It will be really neat to see all these kiddoes grow up…the next Bill Gates, the next Steven Spielburg, the next Dr. Seuss…or even if they are just happy, successful, average people who use their talents to enrich the world around them, it will be just fine by me.

Thanks for letting me ramble on…you folks are invaluable. Rest assured, if (when) ‘Sooper Pupy’ makes it to dvd you will all have a small mention in the credits!

Elizabeth - your post had me laughing out loud!!

“storythinking” - that’s brilliant. That is what he does. He can stop when he has to , but has to be prompted. So there is that issue. But I think he should also be able not go there if he’s in the middle of doing something at school. So its not just stopping it, its inhibiting the urge to start. Just my thoughts…

And I love “sooper pupy” . Looks right to me! : )

‘Inhibiting the urge’ is exactly where we need to go — so that you sit in Math class, focus on MATH and the lesson and the teacher — and stay engaged until math is over. Now, HOW we get there…and when…that of course is what makes us all obsess over our kids and their behaviour! I was one of ‘our kids’, and I sure daydreamed plenty, so I am not sure if it will be cured totally in my kid until he hits college…(School of Animation, that is, which is his only motivation to complete HS — have been telling him since 1st grade that you CAN’T go to college without HS — hope he doesn’t hear about mature student rules until he’s already graduated!)

Part of it is motivation, which is just impossible to perfect when you are a kid and doing things that are not on YOUR agenda — my motivation changed greatly when I hit the world of work cuz I wanted that paycheque and was honest enough to believe I had to give fair value for it. Then, success at work taught me how to ‘do school’, and when I returned to night school I developed study habits and learned much about my own needs as a learner, and how to digest material successfully, tho I still must WRITE to learn, since much of what I read/hear disappears when replaced by new info.

When I ‘studied’ in HS, I did not know this — did badly unless I already knew the subject, and decided I was stupid…I think this happens with alot of kids. BUT NOT OURS, FOLKS!

Linda F: One of the things that made me maddest about the ‘overaccomodating’ attitude I percieved in my son’s school was that I worried he was like me, and would NEED to write to remember. Also, I believed by early Gr. 1 that we had a storyteller/writer/artist type — how was he going to achieve his potential without adequate reading/writing skills? This was why I went the private summer program (Spalding) route.

I think that remediation MUST be paramount for any child who is not reading at grade level end of grade 1 — maybe even SK also. Regardless of cost, this is where our money should be spent. How about intensive summer programs taught by people (cash strapped teachers who shouldn’t have to moonlight at the beer store?!) trained in PG, OG, LMB, etc., for any child struggling at end of SK/Gr. 1, with plans to carefully watch/further test those children in Gr. 2 via SPED without needing a designation? Bet it would reduce new visitors to this site, and THAT would be a good thing. I hope our society will begin to ensure that reading is treated as a RIGHT and not a privilege…sorry, will get off my literacy activist soapbox now!

My GFG read aloud in the Remembrance Day program at school this year…his skills are definitely grade level now! Being right is SO sweet…Have a good weekend, all!

Karen,

At the risk of sounding like Cassandra, I personally would not take the onset of tics lightly. It’s true that transitory tics are common in childhood. But I’ve never read anything that would substantiate that they can be brought on by stress—although stress definitely can worsen tics that a child already has.

There is a class of kids where strep infections can bring on transitory tics, and each subsequent reinfection with strep causes a new tic episode that is lengthier then the first. Enough reinfections will result in a near chronic tic condition. The strep does not have to be bad or even obvious—the child may have no strep symptoms but still test positive for strep. A tendency to get tics and/or OCD following strep runs in families—here I’m thinking of your daughter having a temporary tic episode earlier.

If I were you I’d get a strep test just to make sure son does not have it. If he does, the antibiotics can help alleviate or eliminate the tics. Believe me, I wish I had known about this when my ds first showed little idiosyncracies. I put it up to kids just do some weird things. But following his third strep throat in a year (all diagnosed only because his sister had it—he was symptomless) he was in full-blown out of control tics. (This by the way is not the normal course of Tourette’s. That usually begins with simple motor tics like blinking that gradually escalate. Suddenly coming down with frequent complex tics is much more indicative of strep-induced tics, also know as Pandas.) It took a good year and a half for him to recover from his devastating symptoms and then six months later he got another strep that took more than two years to recover from, and even at that it has not been a 100% recovery.

A while ago I read about a clinic somewhere where they conducted an informal experiment. Every child who came in where the parents mentioned tic or OCD problems was tested for strep. Almsot everyone of them tested positive. This wasn’t done accordig to scientific protocols so the experiment didn’t qualify for a study, but it at least it provides a pretty good rationale for erring on the side of overcautiousness in testing for strep in these cases.

Thanks for sharing that info. about strep.

I was aware of it from my own research, and the fact that I’ve always been curious if strep has effected my son. 5 years ago he had constant strep that couldn’t be cleared from his system. (This was well after we were aware he was “wired differently” but before we knew he was LD. There was , in retrospect, evidence of anxiety before the strep too.) We eventually had his tonsils removed, and I think he’s only had strep once since then. Every time I even suspect strep with either kid I get them both tested, and his tests are always negative. And his unrelenting strep 5 years ago didn’t cause any tics - but I know strep is a tricky infection and can do unexpected things, so I do wonder about him.

With this new development I called my pediatrician and reminded the doctor on call about DS’s history with strep, LD, attentional issues et al. He remained uninterested in seeing him unless the tics persisted for a while. The tics have almost disappeared - I seem to be the only person who notices anything at all .

But I will be vigilant on this point.

not to say that the tics wont’ wax and wane in the future, but for now they seem to be gone.

Plus we just had a check point session with his psychiatrist (he’s done with his psychotherapy, but we check in every few months to keep the doctor current just in case something new comes up…) and he gave me a big thumbs up.

So I feel a little more relaxed that things aren’t going to spiral out of control.

Thanks again for the support…..!