Expert: Valerie Herskowitz - 4/23/2010

Question
My 14 month old son is very social, loves people, has great eye contact, will hand things on command, gives kisses, answers to his name, he does however have very limited speech, he does say dada but not at my husband, he not wave, clap, or point, he balances toys on his thumbs or anything for that matter anytime you do not have his direct attention.  He has a facial "tic"  that consists of closing his eyes, opening his mouth, clenching  his fists and cocking his head back all in a split second when he is over stimulated auditory or visually.  For example, if I open a drawer and put my hand inside and disturb the contents, he has 4-5 tics in a row. The latest thing that I could see that set his tic off was him visually seeing me stir a pot with rice...He will also do it if someone whisles They happen from 10-30 times a day,   We are scheduled for various medical tests, he has already had an eeg which came back good, and has an mri scheduled for monday, but I do not believe it is a physical medical problem. Even his speech therapist has made comments on his obsessive behaviors with the hanging on the fingers thing.  She has asked leading questions like does he ever spin, etc...but then when I took him to a nuerologist he said he had stranger anxiety and good eye contact so it couldn't be autism, he said it was probably more on the lines of a tic disorder...  Could you please watch is video and please tell me in your opinion if it looks like a stim to you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLBOZ-MgUuY   Any insight I could relay to his dr.s I would appreciate more than words can say...

Answer
Hi Luisa

I did watch the video. No doubt there is something neurological going on. Tics are related to autism (Tourettes?)

Whether or not it is just a tic disorder or a developmental delay will have to be decided by a neurologist.

What I can do for you is run you through a simple evaluation which we can do on the phone. I would ask you a series of questions of things that are behaviors that your son should be doing by this age in the communication arena. From that, I would be able to give you a more definite answer. Email me if you would like to do this. It would take about an hour all together to do.

info@valerieherskowitz.com