Continuous giggling and autistic disorder associated with hypothalamic hamartoma.

We present the case of a child affected since early infancy from recurring episodes of giggling mixed with stereotypical behaviours, mingled with head drops, and eventually with falls, in the context of an autistic disorder. Scalp video-EEG recordings revealed an epileptic encephalopathy with generalized slow spike-and-wave complexes alternating with electrodecremental periods, which generally corresponded to the onset of the aforementioned clinical sequences. A resection of a hypothalamic hamartoma was achieved at the age of two.