Tourette syndrome

Definition
Diagnosis
characteristics
Strategies
Books

Chase, age 8

Oral Expression

• Inefficient communication
• Trouble organizing narrative
• Word retrieval problems
• Circumlocution
• Nonspecific word usage
• Deficient verbal pragmatic strategies
• Prosody - too fast or too slow
• Failure to consider needs of listener
• Difficulty expressing emotions appropriately

Listening Comprehension

• Verbal inattention
• Difficulty focusing on verbal detail
• Difficulty focusing on prolonged listening activities
• Fatigue and distractibility in highly verbal settings
• Difficulty following directions
• Need for repetition of verbal instructions
• Auditory imperception
• Auditory processing deficits
• Problems detecting pragmatic language cues
• Difficulty interpreting figurative language

Basic Reading Skills

• Attentional problems
• Impulsivity
• Inattention to detail
• Distractibility during reading activity
• Impersistence
• Poor self-monitoring
• Delayed acquisition of decoding/sound blending skills
• Tracking problems

Reading Comprehension

• Impulsivity
• Impersistence
• Inattention to relevant details
• Inefficient memory strategies
• Sequential processing deficits
• Difficulty with inferential comprehension
• Difficulty comprehending lengthy passages

Written Expression

• Language domain
• Difficulty initiating ideas
• Difficulty limiting topic
• Disorganization and lack of planning
• Poor self-monitoring - many careless errors
• Inability to edit written production
• Memory domain (Difficulty handling complex memory demands)
• Poor recall and maintenance of ideas
• Difficulty remembering appearance of letters/words
• Difficulty making writing legible
• Problems retrieving specific vocabulary words

• Difficulty remembering mechanics (capitalization, punctuation, grammar)
• Difficulty remembering mechanics (capitalization, punctuation, grammar)
• Difficulty spelling correctly
• Graphomotor/handwriting domain (90% have handwriting problems)
• Poor fine motor skills
• Handwriting not an integrated skill
• Impulsivity - rapid, unplanned writing
• Excessively slow writing
• Impersistence when writing several paragraphs

Math Calculation

• Poor mastery of math facts
• Poor active working memory
• Inattention to details
• Impulsivity
• Sequencing problems
• Difficulty with multi-step calculation
• Difficulty following instructions
• Poor spatial utilization
• Poor self-monitoring
• Graphomotor impairment
• Tics distract from attending to details
• Perseverating on numbers and symbols

Math Reasoning

• Difficulty handling abstract language
• Inattention to relevant details
• Sequencing processing deficits
• Impaired executive functioning
• Inefficient memory strategies
• Tracking problems
• Impulsivity
• Impersistence
• Unable to manipulate language
• Motor tic interference
• Stuck