Association Between Childhood Seizures and Speech and Language Impairment

ABSTRACT A large group of children develop language impairment where an obvious cause for the same such as impaired hearing, mental retardation, cleft lip/palate, gross neurological or neuromuscular abnormalities affecting the speech apparatus, and autism cannot be found. This group is labeled as specific language impairment (SLI) The study aimed to assess the association between specific language impairment and childhood seizures. Out of 94 patients of SLI, about one fifth 19 (20.21%) had history suggestive of seizures, of which 15 (78.9 %) were males and 4 (21.05%) females. Majority (57.9%) of patients had generalized tonic-clonic seizures (n=11), in 21% of patients the picture was that of myoclonic seizures (n=4), in another 15.8% (n=3) history of status epilepticus was documented. Associated risk factors of SLI such as family history of seizures, prenatal, perinatal and postnatal factors were also studied. The current study observed a very high association of seizures in this cohort of children with specific language impairment. Since SLI has a multifactorial etiology, seizures per se could not cause these disorders. Prenatal and perinatal insults, along with other risk factors may account for development of SLI. However, presence of seizures, particularly in infancy should be considered a warning signal to screen such children for development of specific language impairment. Keywords: EEG, Seizures, Specific language impairment.