Skip to main content
The Egyptian Journal of Otolaryngology
Download PDF

Concurrent language disorders in children with idiopathic epilepsy

The Egyptian Journal of Otolaryngology volume 33, pages 604–609 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

Objectives

The relationship between language and epilepsy remains complex. Language disorder and epilepsy can be concomitant but unrelated phenomena. They can also be separate consequences of the same underlying brain pathology. Epilepsy can also be the direct cause of the language disorder. The aim of this study was to study concurrent language disorders in children with idiopathic epilepsy.

Study design

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 50 children attending the Neurology Clinic at Alexandria University Children Hospital at El-Shatby with the diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy. Their ages ranged from 3 to 6 years, and 29 were male and 21 were female. These children were divided into two groups: group 1 included 25 cases with idiopathic generalized epilepsy, and group 2 included 25 cases with idiopathic focal epilepsy. All cases were subjected to thorough history taking, assessment of epilepsy severity using the National Hospital Seizure Severity Scale, and comprehensive neurological examination. They were also subjected to digital electroencephalographic recording. The studied cases had undergone psychometric assessment using the Stanford–Binet Test and language assessment using the Comprehensive Arabic Language Test.

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee at the Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University. Consent was taken from all cases to participate in the study.

Results

Thirty-two (64%) children with idiopathic epilepsy presented with developmental language disorders. As regards the observed disorders, 30 (93.7%) cases presented with phonological disorder, 29 (90.6%) presented with semantic disorders, 29 (90.6%) presented with syntax disorders, 20 (62.5%) presented with morphological disorders, and 28 (87.5%) cases presented with pragmatic disorders. Male sex, age (54.48±9 months), and uncontrolled epilepsy demonstrated to have a higher risk for developmental language disorders.

Conclusion

Male sex, age, and uncontrolled epilepsy are risk factors.

References

  1. Filho HSM, Costa CRM, Gomes MM. EEpilepsy and mental health in childhood. J Epilepsy Clin Neurophysiol 2006; 12:79–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Deonna T, Roulet-Perez E. Cognitive and behavioural disorders of epileptic origin in children. Cambridge, UK: Mc Keith Press; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Vinayan KP, Biji V, Sanjeev V. Educational problems with underlying neuropsychological impairment are common in children with benign epilepsy of childhood with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS). Seizure 2005; 14:207–212.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Bjoernas H, Stabell K, Henrikesen O, Loyning Y. The effects of refractory epilepsy on intellectual function in children and adults. Seizure 2001; 1:250–259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Blume W, Luders H, Mizrahi E. Glossary of descriptive terminology for ictal semiology: report of the ILAE task force on classification and terminology. Epilepsia 2005; 46:470–472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Malika LK. Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales. 2nd ed. 6-cairo 16- Sweden: Viktor Cyrillos Press; 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  7. O’Donoghue MF, Duncan JS, Sander JW. The National Hospital Seizure Severity Scale: a further development of the Chalfont Seizure Severity Scale. Epilepsia 1996; 37:563–571.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. El-Maghraby R. Comprehensive Arabic Language test as a tool for assessing delayed language impaired Egyptian children [MD thesis]. Alexandria: Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Kotz S, Balakrishnan N, Read CB, Vidakovic B. Encyclopedia of statistical sciences. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Interscience; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Kirkpatrick LA, Feeney BC. A simple guide to IBM SPSS statistics for version 20.0. Student ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning; 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Binnie D. Cognitive impairment during epileptiform discharges: is it ever justifiable to treat the EEG? Lancet Neurol 2003; 2:725–730.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Revista P. Oral language disorders in preschool children with epilepsy: a speech-language screening. Pro-Fono Scientific Update Magazine 2010; 22:1–6.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Dahlstrom Y., Maki A. Macrostructure and cohesion in stories told by six year-olds with and without epilepsy [Master’s thesis]. Gothenburg: Department of Speech and Language Pathology, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg; 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Caplan R, Siddarth P, Vona P, Stahl L, Bailey C, Gurbani S, et al. Language in pediatric epilepsy. Epilepsia 2009; 50:397–407.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Caplan R, Guthire D, Komo S, Shields WD, Kornblum HI, Mitchell W et al. Conversational repair in pediatric epilepsy. Brain Lang 2001; 78:82–93.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Selassie GRH. Speech and language dysfunction in childhood epilepsy and epileptiform EEG activity. 6-cairo 16- Sweden: University of Gothenburg; 2010. 43–48.

  17. Gomes M, Carvalho N. Epidemiological studies. J Epilepsy Clin Neurophysiol 2005; 11:16–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Parkinson GM. High incidence of language disorder in children with focal epilepsies. Dev Med Child Neurol 2002; 44:533–537.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Cohen H, Lenormand MT. Language development in children with simple-partial left-hemisphere epilepsy. Brain Lang 1998; 64:409–423.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Halász P, Keleman A, Clemens B, Saracz J, Rosdy B, György R, et al. The perisylvian epileptic network. A unifying concept. Ideggyogy Sz 2005; 58:21–31.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt

    Hamdy M. Bedair, Mona K. Mohamed & Faten I. El Kafrawy

  2. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Unit of Phoniatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University, Champollion Street, Alexandria, Azareeta, 21131, Egypt

    Rania M. Abdou (MD)

Authors
  1. Hamdy M. Bedair
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mona K. Mohamed
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rania M. Abdou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Faten I. El Kafrawy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rania M. Abdou.

Additional information

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Rights and permissions

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bedair, H.M., Mohamed, M.K., Abdou, R.M. et al. Concurrent language disorders in children with idiopathic epilepsy. Egypt J Otolaryngol 33, 604–609 (2017). https://doi.org/10.4103/ejo.ejo_2_17

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/ejo.ejo_2_17

Keywords