Written language skills in children with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes.

PURPOSE: The goal of this work was to study written language skills in children with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BCECTS) in the absence of atypical clinical or electroencephalographic (EEG) features (n = 32), as compared with controls (n = 36).
METHODS: BCECTS patients (7-16 years), attending regular school, without cognitive or behavioral regression, or atypical EEG patterns, completed four tests assessing written language skills and one nonverbal cognitive test. School performance information was recorded. Seizure types, duration, and frequency; awake and sleep interictal EEG findings; and medication status were documented. Epilepsy and educational outcome was recorded for a period of 1-5 years after diagnosis.
RESULTS: As a group, BCECTS patients performed significantly worse than controls in spelling, reading aloud, and reading comprehension; presented dyslexic-type errors; and frequently had below-average school performance. Among 11 with poor written language performance, 4 had developmental dysfunctions before school and seizure onset and, as a group, demonstrated low performance on a nonverbal cognitive test. Even though 65.6% were on anticonvulsants due to frequent seizures and/or seizures while awake, none belonged to the atypical BCECTS spectrum with respect to clinical or EEG findings. Increased epilepsy duration and seizure frequency were less represented in patients with no or mild written language problems than in those with poor performance. Otherwise, clinical course and EEG findings in this group were no different than those for the 11 children with severe written language problems. Clinical follow-up indicated that learning problems appear persistent and several children require remedial classes and/or tutoring after the epilepsy has resolved.
CONCLUSIONS: Children with severe but not atypical BCECTS performed, as a group, significantly worse than controls in written language skills, specifically in spelling, reading, aloud and reading comprehension; they also presented many difficulties also found in children with dyslexia. However, poor written language performance was not considered specific to BCECTS because it occurred in children with generally low cognitive capacity and/or preexisting developmental dysfunctions. Moreover, a dissociation between epilepsy outcome and learning problem outcome, in the subgroup with poor performance, casts doubt on the existence of a possible causal link between BCECTS and educational performance.