Neuro Note 2: Tourette Does The Talking

I decided to watch the TED Talk titled Tourette Does the Talking by Thomas White.  Thomas 

is a college student who suffers from Tourette Syndrome.  I choose to watch his talk

because I do not know much about Tourette Syndrome, and was curious to hear about it

from a person who lives it daily.  Thomas describes his daily routine in college and how he is

about to laugh at some of his outbursts.  A major takeaway I had was that there are multiple

types of Tourette Syndrome, and majority of people with tourette syndrome don't have the

type where they have outbursts of inappropriate words or actions.  I thought it was very

interesting to hear how significant his words were to him and his outlook on him being heard

rather than his tourettes. This really connects with our people first outlook and language

used in OT.  This also, made me think of how the media portrays people with tourette

syndrome and other disabilities as hopeless and less while they are not. Also, I thought

about how important a person's voice is to people with assistive technology that speaks for

them, this allows them to address others while allowing them to speak and not their

disability. 

Resource:

TEDx Talks. (2014, February 27). Tourette Does the Talking: Thomas White at TEDxUND. Retrieved April 19, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0szLOMIt9SQ