ISOLATED DISTURBANCE OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE-ACQUISITION AS AN INITIAL SYMPTOM OF EPILEPTIC APHASIA IN A 7-YEAR-OLD CHILD - A 3-YEAR FOLLOW-UP-STUDY

A 7-year-old right-handed girl developed partial complex seizures with a left-sided onset. A brief period of post-ictal aphasia of the condu ction type was documented before seizure control and complete normaliz ation of oral language were obtained. We also found that she had a his tory of previous unexplained difficulty with written language acquisit ion that had occurred prior to the clinically recognized epilepsy and a subsequent loss of this ability. This rapidly improved with control of the epilepsy. The evolution of written language were been followed for 3 years, and continued improvement has occurred with fluctuations related to her epilepsy. This observation adds support to the growing body of data indicating that specific cognitive disturbances can be du e to epilepsy in young children. It shows the vulnerability of skills which are in a period of active development, and the possibility that oral/written language can be differentially involved by cerebral dysfu nction in the young child.