Health and Disability

Anxiety and emotional distress also affect tics in an indirect manner, as parents or teachers will alter their child’s environment by accommodating that anxiety—such as allowing the child to leave the room when ticking or not making a child with Tourette syndrome present in front of the class—rather than making children face their fears.

Rather than helping the child, this kind of accommodation actually can reinforce tics, said the study’s lead author Cyd Eaton, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

What is helpful is getting the child to use a competing response to combat an oncoming tic, a component of comprehensive behavioral intervention for tics, said study co-author Anna Jones, also a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology.

“For example, if my tic is to shrug my shoulder, then a competing response may be to push the pressure down,” Jones said. “It’s really hard to shrug your shoulder when you’re applying pressure, when you’re pushing down.”

The take-home message of the study, Eaton said, “is that the child’s environment can make a big difference in how they are experiencing tics and having Tourette syndrome. That’s really encouraging because families can really help their kids cope with having this disorder. And it just involves making small changes to their environment and how they interact with the child.”