Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy and tolerability of cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) and aripiprazole treatment in children with tic disorders. Methods A randomized,case-controlled clinical trial was designed.Samples were all meet the revised fourth edition of Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 2000(DSM-Ⅳ-TR) diagnostic criteria of chronic tic disorders (CTD) and Tourette's syndrome (TS).Sixty-nine Han Chinese children aged 5 to 16 years old with CTD (n=38) or TS (n=31) were randomly assigned to CES group (n=35) and aripiprazole group (n=34).After 4 weeks treatment,the clinical efficacy and safety were assessed by the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale(YGTSS) and the Treatment Emergent Symptom Scale(TESS) respectively. Results There was no significant difference between two groups (P>0.05).The YGTSS score in both groups decreased from the second week of treatment.Compared with the aripirazole treatment group,the CES treatment group showed a less decreased YGTSS score[(17.91±10.44)% vs (28.60±12.99)%;P<0.01] by the second week of treatment.Similarly,the decline rate of YGTSS score in CES treatment group[(33.03±19.65) %] was significantly lower than that in aripirazole treatment group[(52.79±22.87)%] by the forth week of treatment(P＜0.01).The overall effective rate in the CES and aripiprazole treatment groups was 45.71% and 76.47%,respectively,which was significantly different by 4 weeks after treatment (P<0.05).The incidences of adverse reactions in the CES and aripiprazole groups were separately 14.29% and 11.76%,which had no significant difference (P>0.05).There were also no serious adverse reactions in the two groups. Conclusion s The efficacy of CES may be less and slower than that of aripiprazole.But CES may be a treatment for children with tic disorders because of its certain efficacy and less tolerability.