The first statistics regarding the number of diagnosed cases of Tourette’s syndrome (TS) based on a national U.S. sample has been released by the CDC. Findings show that 3 out of every 1,000 children, ranging in age from six to seventeen, suffer from the neurological disorder. Tourette’s syndrome is usually characterized by repeated motor tics, such as jerking of the neck, limbs, facial movements, and also at least one vocal tic or blurting out of words repeatedly.

According to Rebecca Bitsko a health scientist with the CDC and co-author of the newly released report, “This is the first-ever estimate of Tourette syndrome from a nationally representative sample of U.S. children.” Researchers studied data gathered through phone interviews from nearly 92,000 households during a National Survey of Children’s Health conducted from April 2007 to July 2008. According to the CDC, 27 percent of the parents or guardians who were surveyed reported their children having moderate to severe cases of Tourette’s and 97 percent of the children also suffered from another mental health or neuron-development condition.