An aphasic syndrome in children.

The paper presents case reports of nine children, all of whom had severe disturbances of language function of abrupt or gradual onset. Seizures occurred in seven of the children and all nine had EEG abnormalities.There was no apparent correlation between the seizures, the EEG changes and the aphasia. One patient had a brain biopsy performed at another hospital and the tissue was said to be normal. The cause of the abnormal language function is unknown. Five of the children failed to acquire normal speech subsequently. Three of the four children who made a complete recovery were treated with steroids.