Tourette’s syndrome causes a person to make sudden involuntary sounds and movements, called tics. These can be a combination of physical and vocal tics, including eye movements, facial expressions or jerking of the head or limbs, as well as vocal noises, whistling, tongue clicking, random words or repeating a sounds, word or phrase. Swearing is rare but affects around 1 in 10 people with Tourette’s syndrome. Some individuals are able to control their tics with concentration, which can be extremely tiring.   As with other conditions the severity can vary from person to person but things such as stress, anxiety and tiredness can aggravate the symptoms.

Strengths and Talents	Misconceptions:
Ability to hyper focus: Tics generally subside or disappear when an individual is hyper-focused. This also makes a person with TS very efficient at what they do	Tourette’s isn’t just swearing as that’s all people have ever seen from the media
Interpersonal awareness: people with Tourette’s are very sensitive to people and their reactions. This makes them excellent at reading situations
Planning ahead: because TS is stress-induced, planning ahead becomes a way of life. This becomes innate and almost a reflex reaction that can be a great skill to have in uncertain situations
Creative
Improvising: by being diverse, the way those with Tourette’s approach a problem is different. Most times this means that a solution is creative and effective