Societal and cultural aspects of Tourette syndrome include legal advocacy and health insurance issues, awareness of notable individuals with Tourette syndrome, and treatment of TS in the media and popular culture.
Tourette syndrome is an inherited neurological disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by the presence of motor and phonic tics. Tourette's is a misunderstood and stigmatized condition, often mentioned in the popular media. Tourette syndrome was once considered a rare and bizarre syndrome. It is no longer considered rare, but is often undetected, due to the wide range of severity, with most cases classified as mild. Tourette's is defined as part of a spectrum of tic disorders, which includes provisional and chronic tics.Black, KJ. Tourette Syndrome and Other Tic Disorders. eMedicine (22 March 2006). Retrieved on 7 June 2006. With increased knowledge of the full range of severity of Tourette syndrome—including milder cases—it has shifted from a condition only recognized in its most severe and impairing forms, to one recognized as a condition which is often mild, and which may be associated with some advantages and some disadvantages.
Legal and insurance issues There is no reason to believe that persons with Tourette's have diminished capacity in regards to understanding legal issues. Examples of federal legislation which protects some rights of individuals with TS in the United States include the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Legal and other advocacy information regarding the challenges associated with TS can be found on the website of the Tourette Association of America.Living with TS:Adult Issues. Tourette Syndrome Association. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
A review of all cases tried in state and federal courts in the US between 1985 and 2003 (civil rights, criminal, education, family, labor, and social security) found that TS was implicated in only about 150 cases, 21 of which were criminal, over 18 years. The authors concluded that TS "rarely leads to criminal behavior, but patients with TS who have behavioral comorbidities are at risk of being involved with the legal system".
Latent advantages
Discussions with adults who have Tourette syndrome reveal that not everyone wants treatment or a "cure", especially if that means they may "lose" something else in the process. Some believe that there may even be latent advantages associated with the genetic vulnerability.Leckman JF, Cohen DJ. Tourette's Syndrome—Tics, Obsessions, Compulsions: Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Care. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1999, p. 408. Research supports some advantages associated with Tourette syndrome.
A controlled study on a small (13) group of individuals with TS found that cognitive control may be enhanced in young people with Tourette's because the need to suppress tics results in more efficient control of inhibitions. A subsequent study confirmed and extended the paradoxical result that individuals with Tourette's exhibit greater levels of cognitive control than age-matched healthy peers. There is some evidence to support the clinical lore that children with "TS-only" (Tourette syndrome in the absence of other comorbid conditions) are unusually gifted: neuropsychological studies have identified advantages in children with TS-only. A study of full-scale intelligence quotient (IQ) testing showed that children with TS-only had higher IQ scores, relative to their parents, than predicted by statistical models. Another neurological examination of motor function found that 76% of children with TS-only were faster than average on timed motor coordination, although similar results were not found among children with TS who also had ADHD. In a study of eight children, ages 8–17, those with Tourette syndrome were found to be much quicker at processing certain mental grammar skills than children without the condition. The abnormalities that lead to tics may also lead to "other rapid behaviors, including the cognitive processing of rule-governed forms in language and other types of procedural knowledge". The investigator, Michael Ullman, PhD, said, "These children were particularly fast, as well as largely accurate, in certain language tasks. This tells us that their cognitive processing may be altered in ways we have only begun to explore, and moreover in a manner that may provide them with performance that is actually enhanced compared [to] that of typically developing children".
Notable individuals There are many individuals with Tourette's, living and deceased, recognized in their fields, or for whom obsessive-compulsive tendencies associated with Tourette's may have helped fuel their success.
Samuel Johnson An example of a person who may have used obsessive-compulsive traits to advantageStein G, Wilkinson G, eds (2007). Seminars in General Adult Psychiatry. RCPsych Publications. p. 366. . is Dr. Samuel Johnson, lexicographer, who had Tourette syndrome as evidenced by the writings of James Boswell.Samuel Johnson. Tourette Syndrome Association. Retrieved 10 February 2005. Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the English Language in 1747, and was a prolific writer, poet, and critic. The "case of Dr Johnson accords well with current criteria for the Tourette syndrome; he also displayed many of the obsessional-compulsive traits and rituals which are associated with this syndrome".
According to Boswell, ... while talking or even musing as he sat in his chair, he commonly held his head to one side towards his right shoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards and forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction, with the palm of his hand. In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds with his mouth; sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes making his tongue play backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly under his breath, 'Too, too, too.' All this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a Whale.Hibbert, Christopher (1971). The Personal History of Samuel Johnson. New York: Harper & Row. p. 203. .
There are many similar accounts; in particular, Johnson was said to act in such a manner at the thresholds of doors, and Frances Reynolds—younger sister of artist Joshua Reynolds—said that, "with poor Mrs Williams, a blind lady who lived with him, he would quit her hand, or else whirl her about on the steps as he whirled and twisted about to perform his gesticulations".Hibbert 1971, p. 202. When asked by English poet Christopher Smart's niece, a young child at the time, why he made such noises and acted in that way, Johnson responded: "From bad habit."
Johnson had a number of tics and other involuntary movements. In 1994, Pearce analysed the details provided by Boswell and others; based on the anecdotal evidence, Pearce compiled a list of movements and tics which Johnson was said to have demonstrated. From that list, he determined it was possible that Johnson had Tourette syndrome.
Pearce was not alone in diagnosing Johnson as having Tourette syndrome; in 1967 McHenry Jr was the first to diagnose Johnson with the syndrome.Wiltshire J (1991). Samuel Johnson in the Medical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 29. . It was not until Arthur K. Shapiro's Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome that the diagnosis was made clear, with Shapiro declaring, "Samuel Johnson ... is the most notable example of a successful adaptation to life despite the liability of Tourette syndrome".Shapiro AK. (1978). Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. New York: Raven Press. p. 361. . Murray had come to the same conclusion in a 1979 British Medical Journal paper. Murray based his diagnosis on various accounts of Johnson displaying physical tics, "involuntary vocalisations" and "compulsive behaviour".
In a 2007 analysis, Kammer discussed the "documented evidence" of Johnson's tics, saying that Johnson was "known to have suffered from TS". According to neurologist Oliver Sacks, "the case for Samuel Johnson having the syndrome, though [...] circumstantial, is extremely strong and, to my mind, entirely convincing". He continues by generally describing the "enormous spontaneity, antics, and lightning quick wit" that featured prominently in Johnson's life. However, Pearce goes further into Johnson's biography and traces particular moments in Johnson's life which reinforced his diagnosis, concluding: It is not without interest that periodic boundless mental energy, imaginative outbursts of inventiveness and creativity, are characteristic of certain Tourette patients. It may be thought that without this illness Dr Johnson's remarkable literary achievements, the great dictionary, his philosophical deliberations and his conversations may never have happened; and Boswell, the author of the greatest of biographies would have been unknown.
Other speculative posthumous diagnoses of TS, for example Mozart, are not "... as entirely convincing ... [as] the case for Samuel Johnson having TS ...". Did Mozart really have TS? and Samuel Johnson. Tourette Syndrome Association, Archived version of 7 April 2005.
Others
French author, adventurer, and statesman André Malraux is thought to have had Tourette syndrome.What is TS. Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada. Retrieved 30 March 2009.Todd, Olivier. Malraux: A Life. Knopf, 2005. American millionaire Howard Ahmanson, Jr also has Tourette's,Doward, J. Anti-gay millionaire bankrolls Caravaggio spectacular. The Observer. 6 March 2005. Retrieved on 23 November 2007. as does teacher and author Brad Cohen.VanderWyk & Burnham Authors. Brad Cohen. Retrieved 10 June 2006.Front of the Class wins independent publisher award. Tourette Syndrome Association. Retrieved 3 June 2006. Catalan writer Quim Monzó has Tourette's and is the Honorary President of the Spanish Tourette Syndrome Association (APTT). APTT web page. Retrieved 3 January 2009. Puyod, Carmina. "Síndrome de Tourette: el capricho del cerebro". El Periódico de Aragón (23 May 2003). Retrieved on 3 January 2009. Miss Iowa winner and Miss America 2013 contestant Mariah Cary (not the singer of a similar name) has Tourette's.."Miss Iowa finishes fifth at Miss America pageant". Des Moines Register (12 January 2012). Retrieved on 13 January 2012.
Recognized athletes and figures in the sports world diagnosed with Tourette syndrome include American former soccer goalkeeper Tim Howard,Public Service Announcement for Tourette Syndrome awareness features soccer star Tim Howard. Tourette Syndrome Association. Retrieved on 28 July 2010. American former NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, American three-time Olympic skeleton champion Eric Bernotas,Eric Bernotas. NBCOlympics.com Profiles. Retrieved 20 March 2007. American former MLB player Jim Eisenreich,Jim Eisenreich Foundation. Retrieved on 18 February 2006. American former MLB player Mike Johnston,Mike Johnston. Major League Baseball. Retrieved on 18 February 2006. See Altoona mirror. American motocross rider Jeremy Stenberg (nicknamed "Twitch"),Brown, C.L. "Rider with Tourette's shows no fear on bike." The Courier-Journal. 10 June 2005. and American NASCAR driver Steve Wallace.NASCAR.com (26 July 2006). Q&A: Kenny Wallace/Steve Wallace. Retrieved on 31 July 2006.