Rochelle Caplan|Prabha Siddarth|Pamela Vona|Lesley Stahl|Caroline E. Bailey|Suresh Gurbani|Raman Sankar|W. Donald Shields
Language in pediatric epilepsy
California State University, Fullerton|University of California, Irvine
study examined severity range linguistic impairments young intermediate adolescent youth epilepsy deficits associated illness effects nonverbal intelligence psychopathology readingtests language intelligence achievement structured psychiatric interviews administered 182 epilepsy youth aged 6381 91117 130152 years well 102 age gendermatched normal children parents provided demographic seizurerelated behavioral information childrensignificantly epilepsy subjects language scores 1 standard deviation sd average agematched control groups intermediate adolescent epilepsy groups also significantly lower mean language scores compared matched controls older compared younger epilepsy groups language impairment wider range linguistic deficits longer duration illness childhood absence epilepsy psychiatric diagnosis socioeconomic status associated linguistic deficits young group prolonged seizures lower performance iq minority status predicted low language scores intermediate epilepsy group adolescent group language impairment associated poor seizure control decreased performance iq lower socioeconomic status linguistic reading deficits significantly related epilepsy groupthe agerelated increase linguistic impairment different profiles predictors age group relationship linguistic deficits poor reading skills important clinical developmental theoretical academic implications