Language aspects of the Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome: A systematic review of the literature

Abstract

The syndrome of Gilles de la tourette (sGt) results from an alteration in the frontal and subcortical circuits of the dopaminergic system. Perhaps the best known language related feature are the swear words involuntary produced by the affected persons, although there are other altered features of language and speech that this article also reviews. A systematic literature search in Medline, Pubmed and Science Direct was performed regarding the linguistic aspects of this disorder. We selected 33 articles that focus on linguistic issues proper. the remainder of the articles delivered by the search system (157 articles) only referred to a subset of the search terms. Of the 33 articles, six were specific to the component called “coprophenomena”, eight specific to dysfluencies in SGT, and the other articles explored more general aspects.