A Case of Epilepsy with Developmental Dysphasia Due to Bucco-Facial Apraxia

Abstract

A 14 years old girl whose chief complaints were epileptic seizures and dysarthriawas reported. In infancy, retardation of verbal development and clumsiness of oralmovements were noticed. By speech therapy her vocabularies increased and her speechbecame more fluently than before, however dysarthria was retained. At age of 13 yearsepileptic seizures began, then abnormal findings of brain CT and EEG were found. By neurological examination during admission at our hospital, it was clarified that herdysarthria was caused by bucco-facial apraxia. The CT finding which showed abnormal infolding of cortical gray matter alongthe bilateral symmetrical clefts was considered to be one type of prenatal dysgenesisschizencephaly. The EEG showed repetetive bilateral independent or dependent centro-midtemporalspikes during sleep. The epileptic seizures which occurred at frequency of several timesper month were regarded as complex partial seizures with salivation at onset. From the findings of brain CT, EEG and clinical symptoms, the bilateral centromidtemporalcortical regions were considered to be responsible for the etiological localizedlesion. And from the viewpoint of apasia-epilepsy syndrome, it was discussed that thedevelopmental dysphasia of our case was differentiated from auired aphasia syndromeof Landau-Kleffner. © 1985, JAPAN EPILEPSY SOCIETY. All rights reserved.