Understanding the Phonological Strengths of Children with Tourette Syndrome

Tourette’s Syndrome (TS) is a neuropsychiatric disorder manifested in the form of motor and phonic tics (Thibault et al., 2007). Albeit the accumulating evidence shows how the condition affects people with TS, there appears to be a lack of studies that attempt to determine the advantages of children with TS, especially their phonological strengths. Informed by the innateness theory and biological determinism theory, this experimental research pursues to identify the phonological strengths of individuals with TS. Specifically, the analysis seeks to identify the phonemes uttered accurately and inaccurately by the three respondents. The study utilized Children’s Nonword Repetition (CNRep) as its instrument. The respondents repeated the nonwords from CNRep, and the accuracy of the utterances was analyzed. The results showed that the children with TS have phonological strengths and weaknesses, influenced by their motor and phonic tics. The respondents also displayed a fast response rate, which is believed to be the effect of the tics in the basal ganglia region. The findings reveal that they do not differ from typically-developing children as the study also proved that they also have innate mechanisms in phonological utterances.