NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL, INTELLECTUAL, AND BEHAVIORAL FINDINGS IN PATIENTSWITH CENTROTEMPORAL SPIKES WITH AND WITHOUT SEIZURES

Forty children (23 boss, 17 girls) with centrotemporal spikes (rolandi c focus) with and without seizures (mean age 8.4 years +/- 4.8 SD), an d 40 healthy controls matched for age, sex, and socioeconomic status w ere assessed for their neuropsychological, intellectual, and behaviora l outcome. Compared with the controls, patients were significantly imp aired in their IQ, visual perception, short-term memory, in their psyc hiatric status and in some subtests in a fine motor performance task. No significant differences could be computed for a simple finger-motor speed exercise or a linguistic performance test. In patients, deficit s in IQ were significantly correlated with frequency of spikes in the EEG, but not with frequency of seizures, lateralization of the rolandi c focus, or time since rolandic focus was diagnosed. It was concluded that a rolandic focus is not as benign as once thought.