14 DAY TRIAL // A pilot study of a new training program which aims at teaching parents how to cope with and manage disorderly behavior of children who suffer from Tourette and tic disorders has been recently initiated and proved to be really working. The pilot study was carried out by a team of experts from the Yale School of Nursing and the Yale Child Study Center.
The study used Parent Management Training (PMT) and was conducted on 24 children who suffered from Tourette syndrome or tic disorders. Of the 24 kids with ages ranging between 10 and 12, 18 were Tourette syndrome patients, while 6 were chronic tic disorder sufferers.
The pilot study - which lasted for 10 weeks - proved to be really working, because parents in the PMT group managed to control their children' disorderly and disruptive behavior visibly better than parents in the control group. Results showed that parents in the PMT group reduced their offsprings' odd behavior by 51%, while parents in the control group succeeded in decreasing their children' weird behavior by only 19%.
Tourette Syndrome is a genetic condition that can be either hereditary or developed by children in the womb. Even if the exact cause of this syndrome has not been tracked down yet, scientists say that it is related to the communication of nerves in the brain, therefore a neurological disorder. Usually, an abnormal metabolism of the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin are involved with the disorder. The onset of the syndrome mostly occurs at an early age, from 2 to 15 years.
Tourette Syndrome is characterized by motor or vocal tics that last more than one year. Tics are abrupt, repetitive and involuntary muscular contractions or sounds. Besides motor or vocal, tics may be simple or complex.
The most common early symptoms consist of facial tics (eye blink, nose twitch, grimace) which are afterwards replaced or added to by other tics of the neck, trunk and limbs. These are included in the simple tics category. Other persons can manifest complex tics that involve the whole body, such as kicking, stamping or repetitive thoughts.
Lawrence Scahill from the Yale School of Nursing and the Yale Child Study Center, who led the research, pointed out: "A new approach is needed because the relationship between tics and disruptive behavior is unclear and this can be confusing for parents and teachers. Tics are involuntary, but not all of the disruptive behavior seen in children with TS is involuntary. This can lead to uncertainty about what behaviors to accept and what behaviors to limit."