Thankyou for posting this Eden. *eternal (if it works for gold).

People can be soo f*cking ignorant sometimes about disabilities such as this and the more education that can be dispersed the better.

From someone with mild tourette's, thank you for posting this.

What's even sadder about this, is that all the kids in here seem sharp kids. Not that I ever thought people with tourette's were morons, but the fact that you are intelligent and have a neurological problem, is kinda sad.

It's all about the atmosphere and ability empire, when you grow up with a disability your priorities are different, a lot of kids find solace in books and academic courses (as did I as a kid) where they can excel. If I remember high school right kids with disabilities were more "accepted" in the higher academic setting as opposed to out in the sports world or whatnot. I'm trying not to stereotype here, but from personal experience that is just how I view it.

hm, that was pretty interesting. anyone know of any documentaries? like BrainMan was about autism.

but that one kid needs to get rid of his dreads. they look dreadful!

Great post!

The wikipedia page on TS makes a few references to an HBO documentary called "I have Tourette's, but Tourette's doesn't have me" from 11/2005 which appears to be what this video is from or promoting. You might be able to dig it up somewhere.

This is actually a clip from that documentary as I can tell. The full program is listed here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=12EF067AD9357720 I will sift it if noone else takes it.

Good post.

I was in a KFC once and a guy was having an episode. In a back corner yelling gibberish while the other guy he was with just kept eating. The cashier said she was going to call the police, sheesh. People are pretty ignorant.

Then there are folks who think it means they cuss, boneheads.

Then again I did see a pic a while back called "mute torrurett" and was a guy holding up a sign with the word "CUNT" on it, that was funny

i watched the whole documentary on HBO a while back. It basically showed the kids in their classes and how they cope with Tourette's. Fairly interesting, it's worth a watch.

interesting to see it happening, especially the first kid.
First thing i thought of was - bet that's what some of the bible stories of "demonic possession" were.

Snipe - you should go for it - it would be nice to see the whole thing in glorious siftovision.

As if just being an average awkward kid isn't enough.

I remember seeing this on HBO a while back. Even being thoroughly familiar with the disorder, it made me truly cry for the first time in years. And it made me smile and laugh too.

@Memorare - you're probably right, but I suspect many more of them were epileptics. It is one of the most common neurological disorders in mammals.

at first I thought "oh gee..someone posted a video of kids swearing. Course swearing is only a symptom of less then %5 of tourettes patients." Was nice to be wrong this time. A very very well done clip by HBO, heres to hoping it makes a few rounds in our hellish school system.

Thank you very much eden for posting this. My son has exhibited some of these symptoms (mildly) and I never made the connection until I saw this. It scared me, but I can work on helping him if this is what he has.

After doing some research as well it looks like there is a link between food allergies and the ticks and twitches associated with Tourettes. There are a number of articles about people who have helped their kids reduce the ticks and twitches significantly by altering their child's diet.

I was about to downvote because I thought it was a parody. I was relived that it's so informative. Kudos!

Thanks for all the positive comments - I looked at quite a few Tourettes related vids when looking to post this, but this one really stuck out to me.
I'm glad this video was meaningful for some of you

Love these kids!

One of my only experiences with Tourettes was on an Easter Sunday in a very formal church setting. It was High Church. I was in the balcony with my girlfriend and we were looking down on all the hats and hair and lovely shoulders covered with the best of the Sunday best. The choir had just finished singing and everyone was trying to act all holy and the minister stood up to begin delivery of what I suspected was going to be another pedestrian sermon. Well, apparently the kid in the congregation with Tourettes thought it was going to be boring as well. He livened it up. One of the best Easters I can remember.

is there any evidence connecting tourette's with intelligence apart from this video?

I don't believe so, MINK, but it's been a long time since I've studied this stuff. It's odd - many psychological disorders are commonly associated with high intelligence, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But the fact is, most diseases of the brain can affect anyone anytime. I think it's mostly the case that (as I suspect it was for this documentary) the subjects are chosen as "representatives" of whatever disease because of their otherwise high functioning.

An interesting article at APA debunks some of the professional myths about the syndrome.

And there's several other good articles at APA.org for more info.

Surprisingly, even a standard google search on tourette yields lots of good info. I expected a lot of tripe and misinformation. Go google.

And, of course, one of the best sources of information is the Tourette's Syndrome Association.

More than worthy of a *promote

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Search for BBC doc, " John's Not Mad " . One kid's experience.

There also has been a follow-up with him at 32. Not sure where to find them.

COFFEE!! METAL!!!

*dead

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Awarding kronosposeidon with one Power Point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

*1sttube *promote

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These kids are so smart, expressive and eloquent. I wish more of my friends were as sharp as these kids.

Seriously, kudos to these kids for being sharper than most high school students!

It's really sad that there's people out there that have to live a life where at any moment they could go into an episode like that.

I hope they all find good friends with comparable levels of intelligence that can recognize that these ticks and random outbursts are not of the persons own volition and can isolate them as basically "junk information".

I doubt that most people can do that though.

*promote

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