Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Stereotypical Movement Disorders and Tic Disorders

Motor disorders are a subcategory of the neurodevelopmental disorders group of conditions that typically begin in childhood and can affect as many as 15% of children. Motor disorders include developmental coordination disorder, stereotypic movement disorder, and tic disorders. These disorders can be especially problematic for children since they are often readily obvious to observers. Individuals with these disorders easily can be stigmatized or ostracized because they may make strange-looking movements, emit odd sounds, or just appear quite different to peers. Such children can draw unwanted attention by their clumsiness or flapping hands, grunting or other annoying sounds, and body jerking movements. Some of these disorders such as the tic disorders were identified many hundreds of years ago. Individuals with tic disorders are often misunderstood and have suffered persecution and mistreatment for their neurobiological disorders which they cannot typically control for extended periods of time. In general, developmental coordination disorder includes problems in the acquisition and execution of coordinated motor skills and often is manifested by clumsy and slow motor skills. Stereotypic movement disorder is characterized by early-onset and random motor behaviors such as hand flapping and rocking, head banging, self-biting, and hitting. Tic disorders include sudden, rapid, recurrent, nonrhythmic movements or vocalizations that typically wax and wane but have been present for at least 1 year. Best practice assessment and treatments are now being advanced with additional data that are becoming increasingly available through developments in gene sequency and magnetic resonance imaging techniques.