When To Worry About Your Kid's Facial And Body Tics

The how or why tics occur isn’t known, but it’s believed to be related to the connections from the deep parts of the brain to the front parts of the brain and those connections going back and forth, explains Doja. The assumption is there’s some sort of dysfunction happening in the brain, though, he notes, you can’t do an MRI to test for them.

There can be a genetic component to tics, says Doja, noting that tics sometimes run in families. But, he says, it’s not always a direct connection. “Some people might have ADHD in the family and then another person will have tics, or, similarly, someone may have anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder and another person will have tics, because all those are kind of interrelated.” According to Tourette Canada, “Studies indicate that a person with Tourette Syndrome has between a 5 to 15 percent chance of having a child, sibling or parent with the condition.”

Conditions like ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, learning problems, anxiety, behaviour problems and sleep disorders are commonly seen in association with tics, Doja explains, noting that while it varies, one of the most comprehensive studies on the connection found that up to 85 percent of people with Tourette Syndrome will also have one of these conditions in their lifetime.

Pearce mentions that tics are also infrequently associated with a group of symptoms related to something called pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcus (PANDAS). She says in the case of this condition, (which she calls a “controversial diagnosis”) the tics would come on after a child has a strep infection, and that they appear in a sudden onset, and are intense and severe.