Landau Kleffner Syndrome

Today is Epilepsy Awareness Day.  One of Kamiree's diagnoses is Landau Kleffner Syndrome which is part of the epilepsy family.  I have never got in depth with it so I am putting LKS in simplified terms with the help of epilepsy.com so people can understand our daughter better.

1.  In the typical case, a child between 3 and 7 years of age experiences language problems, with or without seizures. The language disorder may start suddenly or slowly. It usually affects the child's understanding of spoken language the most, but it may affect both understanding speech and speaking ability, or it may affect speaking only.

Seizures are usually few and often occur during sleep. Simple partial seizures involving movement are most common, but tonic-clonic seizures can also occur.

2. Its symptoms are "acquired aphasia" (the loss of language abilities formerly present) and usually a seizure disorder. The children usually have generalized tonic-clonic and atypical absence seizures.  This was the hard part for us, because Kamiree lost ALL language she had learned up to the age of 3.  You don't realize how much they say at that time, but video's from that age show us Kamiree was talking and conversing before this syndrome got her. 

The EEG is often the key to the diagnosis. A normal EEG, especially one done when the child is awake, does not rule out this disorder. Sleep activates the epilepsy waves in these children, so sleep recordings are extremely important. Sometimes the abnormality is seen only during sleep.

The boundaries of the Landau-Kleffner syndrome are imprecise. Some children may first have a delay in language development followed by a loss of speech milestones. Landau-Kleffner syndrome (or a variant of it) may also occur in some children in whom language function never develops, or in others whose language skills move backward but who very seldom have epilepsy waves on the EEG. The exact relationship between the epilepsy waves on the EEG and the language disorder is imprecise, although in some cases the epilepsy activity may contribute to the language problems.

3. After age 10, only 20% of patients still have seizures. The clinical course of the disorder fluctuates and it occasionally disappears on its own.

Some children are left with permanent language difficulties. Most commonly, these are children in whom medical or surgical therapy does not eliminate the epileptic patterns on the EEG.

Kamiree is having seizures 30% of the time, but we are unaware of them.  Only through an overnight EEG did we realize she was having these.  Medication can help a little, but does not stop them completely.  We are praying that she will not have permanent language difficulties and that the speech therapy we are getting her will help her when she comes out of this.  

Thank you for all the support with Kamiree!  We are blessed to have you all in our lives and praying for us!  

References

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/epilepsy_landaukleffner