'Any other parent might not have taken their child to the doctor for this'

Callum Ewing was just four when his dad noticed something 'strange'. As the little boy was watching Scooby Doo, one of his eyes was flickering up and down.

Before that, Callum’s parents thought he was a moody toddler who got frustrated while playing with certain toys. Eventually, the family would find out the truth - and it has shaped Callum’s life ever since. READ MORE: 'People thought I was lazy - everyone's faces dropped when they learned the truth' Now 24, the Salford University student has spoken about a condition which has shaped his life, in order to raise awareness - and break down stigma. “Between the ages two and three, before I could obviously communicate anything to my parents, I struggled with toys that involved shapes - ones where you would put the square peg in the square hole," he said. “I also used to get really frustrated playing with my train sets, trying to align the train on its track.

So much so I used to give up and throw my toys across the room. “My parents thought I was just a really, really moody child but I must have known something clearly wasn’t right at the time, I just couldn’t verbalise it.” In 2003, four-year-old Callum was at his home in Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

He was being looked after by his dad while his mum was away working. It was then that his father noticed his facial tic. “My dad always paid a lot of attention to me, made sure I was okay and engaged with me a lot, so when he saw my eye flickering he thought ‘This is a bit strange, it’s a bit weird'", Callum says now. “Any other parent might not have taken their child to the doctor's, but they decided to take me to the local GP, just in case.