Oral language disorders in preschool children with epilepsy: a speech-language screening.

Background: oral language disorder and epilepsy in childhood.

Aim: to verify the occurrence of oral language disorders in epileptic preschoolers attended at the Child Neurology Section of a university hospital.

Method: a prospective study with 30 epileptic children who were submitted to an oral speech-language evaluation.

Inclusion criteria: explicit diagnosis of epilepsy according to the ILAE (2005); ages between 3 to 6 years; normal neurological standard and neuropsychomotor development.

Exclusion criteria: dubious diagnosis of epilepsy; altered neurological standard and neuropsychomotor development; children with associated pediatric disorders. Analyzed variables were: gender, age of first seizure, types of seizure and treatment regime. OR (odds ration) was determined, with a significance level of < 0.05.

Results: 18 (60%) children with epilepsy presented oral language disorders and 12 (40%) presented normal language development. Regarding the observed disorders, 12 (67%) presented language disorder and 6 (33%) presented phonological disorder. Male children (OR = 2.03) and those with partial seizure (OR = 2.41) demonstrated to have a higher risk for oral language disorders.

Conclusion: the results indicate that preschoolers with epilepsy present a predominance of oral language development delay, and that the male gender and partial seizure are risk factors for this age group.