My ASD Child

"I'm 16 years old and I have ASD [level 1]. My parents and my friends tell me that I'm always blinking my eyes. Does everybody with autism have tics? What causes it? What can I do to stop it?" Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can have many complications such as tics. Tics are rapid sudden movements of muscles in your body. Tics can be vocal, too. Both kinds of tics are very hard to control and can be heard or seen by others. However, some tics are invisible (e.g., toe crunching, building up tension in your muscles). Simple tics involve just one group of muscles and are usually short, sudden and brief movements such as twitching the eyes or mouth movements. Some simple tics can be head shaking, eye blinking or lip biting. Simple vocal tics can be throat clearing, coughing or sniffing. Complex tics involve more than one muscle group and are longer movement which seem more complex such as jumping, hoping, touching people, hitting yourself or pulling clothes