Reading and language profiles among children with epilepsy.

Epilepsy Behav

Division of Pediatric Neuropsychology, Children's National Hospital, 15245 Shady Grove Road, Suite 350, Rockville, MD 20850, USA. Electronic address:

Published: December 2024

AI Article Synopsis

  • * It found some kids are really good at broad language skills, but struggle more with reading fluency and comprehension.
  • * Certain factors, like the age when seizures start and how many medicines they take, can affect these language and reading abilities in kids with epilepsy.

Article Abstract

This study evaluated the profile of language and reading skills among children with epilepsy. We utilized a sample of children from an epilepsy database who were administered a measure of reading comprehension, excluding those whose intellectual skills were in the impaired range (N=147; age range 4-20 years, 52 % female). Additional measures that were considered within the sample included broad language skills, pre-reading skills (phonological processing, rapid naming, decoding), and basic reading skills (sight word reading, reading fluency). We further considered associations between these skills and seizure characteristics (age of onset, number of anti-seizure medications, seizure type, seizure frequency, and localization). We found that our sample performed significantly lower on all language and reading skills, on average, than normative expectations. Within our sample, relative strengths were noted in broad language skills, and relative weaknesses were found in phonological processing, rapid naming, reading fluency, word reading, and reading comprehension. We further identified a subgroup of our sample (31 %) who were characterized as struggling in reading comprehension (performing one standard deviation below the normative mean); these children exhibited a profile more consistent with non-epilepsy samples with reading disabilities/ dyslexia. Seizure variables that were associated with language and reading skills included age of onset, number of anti-seizure medications, seizure frequency, and having generalized (versus focal) seizures. These results have important implications for the identification and treatment of reading problems in children with epilepsy.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2024.110057DOI Listing

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