Association of epileptiform brain activity and specific language impairment (SLI) in preschool children

Abstract

Background Epileptiform activities can cause transient or permanent deficits that affect the children during development and may be accompanied by neurodevelopmental disorders like specific language impairment. Objectives The objective of this study was to find if there is a possible association and the impact of epilepsy and epileptiform activity in children with specific language impairment. Patients and methods The study was conducted on 80 children suffering from specific language impairment and 80 age and sex match healthy control children. Computed tomography brain was performed and electroencephalography was recorded for children. Intelligence quotient level, cognitive age, social, and phoniatric assessment were done for all patients. Results Eighty children with specific language impairment (51 males and 29 females) with a mean age of 4.11 ± 1.93. Patients with specific language impairment showed significantly higher rates of abnormal electroencephalography (P = 0.006) and epilepsy (P < 0.001) compared to the control group. Spearman correlation demonstrated a highly negative significant relationship linking the language, intelligence quotient with abnormal electroencephalography and epilepsy (r = − 0.91, P < 0.01 and r = − 0.91, P < 0.01 respectively). Also, there was a moderately inverse significant relationship linking the cognitive age, social with abnormal electroencephalography, and epilepsy (r = − 0.70, P < 0.05 and r = − 0.65, P < 0.05 respectively). Conclusion Epileptiform activities even without epilepsy in preschool children may alter normal language function. Specific language impairment was associated with lower intelligence quotient levels, social, and cognitive age. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT04141332

Effect of seizures on developmental trajectories in children with autism

“…The difference reached statistical significance in the Combinatorial Receptive Language subscale on Months 3, 6, 12, 15, 18, and 21; in the Expressive Language subscale on Months 9 through 36 (with the exception of Month 30); in the Sociability subscale on Months 6 through 36 (with the exception of Month 30); in the Sensory awareness subscale on Months 3, 9, 24, 30, and 36; in the Health subscale on all time points except month 3. The results of this study support previous reports of a negative correlation between the presence of seizures and every aspect of a child’s development (Esmael et al, 2021; Hermann et al, 2002; Schoenfeld et al, 1999).…”

“…Hermann et al found that children with early onset of seizures scored 11.6% lower on WAIS-III Verbal IQ scores ( p <0.0001), 11.3% lower on the Boston Naming Test ( p <0.0001), and 21.2% lower on the Controlled Oral Word Fluency test ( p =0.002) as compared to a healthy age-matched controls (Hermann et al, 2002). Esmael et al found that children with selective language impairments had a 26.2% prevalence of abnormal EEGs compared to 6.2% in the age- and sex-matched control group ( p =0.006) (Esmael et al, 2021). There was a strong negative correlation between language intelligence quotient and abnormal EEGs (r=-0.91, p<0.01).…”

Low language capacity in childhood: A systematic review of prevalence estimates

“…However, this exclusion criterion fails to account for children who have both language difficulties and a non-verbal IQ score below 85 but have not scored low enough to be diagnosed with an intellectual disability (Volkers, 2018). Thus, SLI may be seen as a more artificial abstraction intended for research, such as brain imaging (e.g., Esmael et al, 2021), and genetic studies (e.g., Eldesouki, 2021) where identification of 'pure' language impairment may be warranted, and not for clinical purposes nor to inform social health policy (Reilly et al, 2014;Tomblin et al, 1996). Further, evidence indicates that having average or low average IQ does not contribute to differences in functional impact or education attainment of children with DLD (Norbury et al, 2016a(Norbury et al, , 2016b, nor does it influence responsiveness to intervention (Bishop et al, 2016;Bowyer-Crane et al, 2011;Ebbels, 2013).…”