Do Tourette syndrome children have an advantage at language?

3rd Oct 2016

A new study conducted by Newcastle University researchers, found that children with the neurological disorder were faster at assembling sounds into words, than typically developing children.

Both groups of children performed a repetition task with non-words. Tourettes Syndrome group were faster, but not less accurate than the control group. This finding is consistent with previous research in the area. Children with Tourettes are also faster at putting together meaningful parts of words, such as "walk" and "ed".

Overall, this suggests speeded grammatical composition in the disorder. Further research is needed, but the current possible explanation for this is the abnormalities in the frontal/basal-ganglia in Tourette syndrome children.

To view the full paper, please visit science direct website