Research that focuses on detecting and assessing the presence of communication impairments in children with developmental disabilities exists. However, more research is needed which compares these deficits across individuals with various developmental disabilities. This information could inform the assessment process and treatment programs.…

Background: There is a noticeable publication gap in the speech-language pathology literature regarding the language abilities of children with common types of epilepsy. This paper reviews studies that suggest a high frequency of undetected language problems in this population, and it proposes the need for pragmatically based assessment of…

This study investigated differences in co-occurring diagnoses made in females compared to males with autism spectrum disorders in 913 children (746 males and 167 females) living in the United States with a current autism spectrum disorder diagnosis identified via caregiver-reported data from the National Survey of Children's Health 2007. The…

Aim: The aim of this study was to define the prevalence of and risk factors for behavioural disorders in children with epilepsy from a rural district of Tanzania by conducting a community-based case-control study. Method: One hundred and twelve children aged 6 to 14 years (55 males, 57 females; median age 12y) with active epilepsy (at least two…

The attainment of developmental milestones was examined and compared in 162 infants and toddlers with developmental disabilities, including Down Syndrome (n = 26), Cerebral Palsy (n = 19), Global Developmental Delay (n = 22), Premature birth (n = 66), and Seizure Disorder (n = 29). Toddlers in the Seizures Disorder group began crawling at a…

Assessing social skills is one of the most complex and challenging areas to study because behavioral repertoires vary depending on an individual's culture and context. However, researchers have conclusively demonstrated that individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) have impaired social skills as well as those with co-morbid autism spectrum…

The current study examined the rate of expulsions and mouth cleans across 3 presentation methods (upright spoon, flipped spoon, Nuk brush) for a 3-year-old girl with a feeding disorder. The participant expelled all bites presented on an upright spoon. Results showed reduced rates of expulsions and increased mouth cleans during the flipped spoon…

Epilepsy is frequently associated with attention and memory problems. In adults, lateralization of seizure focus impacts the type of memory affected (left-sided lesions primarily impact verbal memory, while right-sided lesions primarily impact visual memory), but the relationship between seizure focus and the nature of the memory impairment is…

We previously reported that foetal valproate exposure impairs intelligence quotient. In this follow-up investigation, we examined dose-related effects of foetal antiepileptic drug exposure on verbal and non-verbal cognitive measures. This investigation is an ongoing prospective observational multi-centre study in the USA and UK, which has enrolled…

Background: Medical problems are described in a population of persons with Down syndrome. Health surveillance is compared to the recommendations of national guidelines. Method: Case records from the specialised and primary healthcare and disability services were analysed. Results: A wide spectrum of age-specific medical and surgical problems was…

Dichotic listening test (DL) is an important tool to disclose speech dominance in healthy subjects and in clinical cases. The aim of this study was to probe if focal epilepsy in children reveals a corresponding suppression of the ear reports contralateral to seizure onset site. Thus, 15 children and adolescents with clinically and…

Background: Various psychiatric and neurological disorders including epilepsy have been associated with language deficits. Pragmatic language deficits, however, have seldom been the focus of earlier studies in children with epilepsy. Moreover, it is unknown whether these pragmatic deficits are related to general intellectual functioning. Both…

Although epilepsy is particularly common among people with intellectual disability (ID) it remains unclear whether it is associated with an increased likelihood of co-morbid psychopathology. We therefore investigated rates of mental health problems and other clinical characteristics in patients with ID and epilepsy (N=156) as compared to patients…

Aim: We observed a dramatic response to the ketogenic diet in several patients with highly refractory epilepsy whose seizure frequency had recently worsened. This study aimed to identify whether this characteristic was a useful indication for the ketogenic diet. Method: From the 70 patients who received the ketogenic diet during a 3-year period at…

Patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy from hippocampal origin and patients with unilateral surgical excision of an epileptic focus located in the medial temporal lobe were compared to healthy controls on a version of the Autobiographical Interview (AI) adapted to assess memory for event-specific and generic personal episodes. For both…