Improving Tourette's Symptoms with Parent Management Training

A study by researchers at the Yale University School of Nursing shows that using Parent Management Training (PMT) can reduce the symptoms of children with Tourette's Syndrome and chronic tic disorders.

While tics are involuntary, children with Tourette's Syndrome or chronic tics frequently also experience outbursts and tantrums which may or may not be tied to the disorder. The study was designed to investigate whether the PMT trainings used to help parents deal with similar behaviors in children with ADHD and OCD.

Twenty-four children age 6 to 12 and their parents participated in the study. Half were used as a control group while the parents in the other half underwent a PMT program emphasizing positive reinforcement and emphasizing consistent reactions to outbursts and clear explanations of consequences. Both groups of parents were then asked to monitor the number of tantrums and outbursts by their children during a ten week period.

Parents who had undergone the PMT course reported 52 percent fewer tantrums compared to just a 19 percent decrease for parents who had not. In blind interviews, clinicians found that 64 percent of children in the PMT group had improved in comparison to 17 percent in the non-PMT group.

Read more: Study shows parent training can lessen effects of Tourette's