Tourette Syndrome

For years now I’ve said that many skills such as language, mathematics, and sports are actually enhanced by Tourette Syndrome, not hindered. My eldest daughter, for example, was speaking in full sentences before she was one. Now, the Georgetown University has released findings in a study here in Science Central about the brain speed of those with TS. It seems (rather obviously) that those with TS (whose synapses are firing faster than those of other people) are quite normal except in scholarly testing they are faster (OK … duh).

The subject of the article is 14 year-old Andrew Youngen, who, judging by the video in the article, is courageous, engaging, smart, and quite funny. Even particularly mature for his age. He speaks up about some particularly astute matters: don’t remind me of my tics or it will only make it worse (personally, I tic much more when I write these things than I do when I’m in stressful situations), some personal attributes are advantageous and some are not (a life lesson most adults never learned).

Of all the articles and studies I’ve run across lately, this is by far the most intelligently done. We can only hope that medical research on the matters of controlling tics (or not) will catch up.