Sign language tics in a prelingually deaf man

Gilles de la Tourette syndrome is characterized by vocal and motor ties starting in childhood. Vocal ties may be either noises or words, and the vocal language ties may consist of obscenities (coprolalia) and repetitions of speech that has been heard (echolalia). We describe a prelingually deaf man who has the full array of ties seen in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, but in whom vocal language ties are replaced by equivalent sign language ties. This is, to our knowledge, the first report of sign language ties in a person with prelingual deafness. The implications of this phenomenon for the separation between language and ideas in ties and the equivalence of sign language to spoken language is discussed.