Duplication of chromosome 15q11.2-q13.1 (dup15q syndrome) results in hypotonia, intellectual disability (ID), and autism symptomatology. Clinical electroencephalography has shown abnormal sleep physiology, but no studies have characterized sleep behaviors. The present study used the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) in 42 people with…

Learning and memory dysfunction is the most common neuropsychological effect of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, and because the underlying neurobiology is poorly understood, there are no pharmacological strategies to help restore memory function in these patients. We have demonstrated impairments in the acquisition of an allocentric spatial task,…

Background: It is well established that very few individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and an IQ below 70 are able to live independently as adults. However, even amongst children with an IQ in the normal range, outcome is very variable. Childhood factors that predict later stability, improvement or decline in cognitive functioning…

The hippocampal dentate gyrus maintains its capacity to generate new neurons throughout life. In animal models, hippocampal neurogenesis is increased by cognitive tasks, and experimental ablation of neurogenesis disrupts specific modalities of learning and memory. In humans, the impact of neurogenesis on cognition remains unclear. Here, we…

There is uncertainty about the proportion of children with autism spectrum disorders who do not develop phrase speech during the preschool years. The main purpose of this study was to examine this ratio in a population-based community sample of children. The cohort consisted of 165 children (141 boys, 24 girls) with autism spectrum disorders aged…

This study examines change in 152 children over an almost 10-year period (T1: 4.9 (plus or minus 1.3) years; T2: 8.1 (plus or minus 1.3) years; T3: 15(plus or minus 1.6) years) using a group-based, semi-parametric method in order to identify distinct developmental trajectories. Important deficits remain at adolescence in the adaptive abilities of…

Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder in childhood and can have a significant impact on a child's schooling. Children with epilepsy may have special educational needs due to having learning disability, specific learning difficulties, specific cognitive deficits or having symptoms associated with ASD, ADHD, depression or anxiety. These…

The combined burden of psychosocial (Achenbach scales), cognitive (Raven matrices), and executive function (EF) problems was studied in a population-based sample of 6- to 12-year-old children with epilepsy (n = 162; 99 males, 63 females) and in an age- and sex-matched control group (n = 107; 62 males, 45 females). Approximately 35% of the children…

Background: Tuberous sclerosis (TSC) is a multi-system disorder caused by heterozygous mutations in the "TSC1" or "TSC2" gene and is often associated with neuropsychiatric symptoms, including intellectual disability, specific neuropsychological deficits, autism, other behavioural disorders and epilepsy. Method: Here, we review evidence from animal…

The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of reading, writing, and calculation disabilities in children with typical rolandic epilepsy (RE) and healthy control children. We also aimed to define the possible electroclinical markers of specific cognitive dysfunctions in RE. School abilities were evaluated and compared in 20 children…

There is considerable interest in the assessment of executive function (EF) in pediatric clinical populations but only a few well-standardized measures exist. We examined EF in 53 children aged 8 to 18 years with recent onset epilepsy (31 males, 22 females) and 50 control children (23 males, 27 females) using the Behavior Rating Inventory of…

Surgical treatment appears to improve the cognitive prognosis in children undergoing surgery for temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The beneficial effects of surgery on memory functions, particularly on material-specific memory, are more difficult to assess because of potentially interacting factors such as age range, intellectual level,…

The Portland Neurotoxicity Scale (PNS) is a brief patient-based survey of neurotoxicity complaints commonly encountered with the use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). The authors present data on the validity of this scale, particularly when used in longitudinal studies. Participants included 55 healthy controls, 23 epilepsy patient controls, and 86…