{"id":734195,"date":"2026-08-11T04:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/734195\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T04:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:46:11","slug":"the-cambridge-university-lecturer-who-kept-her-tourettes-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/734195\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cambridge University lecturer who kept her Tourette’s secret"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most recent data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, external<\/a> shows out of about 245,000 academic staff working in the UK’s institutions, just 70 – or 0.03% – have disclosed a developmental condition that affects motor or cognitive skills.<\/p>\n

Experts believe the true number may be far highe, external<\/a>r and that many academics with conditions such as Tourette’s hide their neurodiversity for fear of repercussions.<\/p>\n

Cole’s vocal tics tend to include the names of her husband, her son or the family cat or random phrases such as “good night” during the day time.<\/p>\n

“I worry a little bit [that] I’m like the palatable face of Tourette’s – I don’t swear, I don’t say anything that is going to be too challenging.<\/p>\n

“I think what we just really need as society is an understanding of Tourette’s, an understanding of tics and to know that tics aren’t what we really think,” she says.<\/p>\n

The words are merely “a neurological event that we have no control over”, she adds.<\/p>\n

Emma McNally, the chief executive at Tourette’s Action, says many of those with coprolalia end up self-isolating from society.<\/p>\n

She adds that many people with Tourette’s find people accepting of their condition until they say something that feels as though “it’s about them”.<\/p>\n

“People then take offence even though there’s no malice behind it,” says McNally. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most recent data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, external shows out of about 245,000 academic staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-734195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}