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Absence Seizures in Toddlers
Sat, 02/26/2005 - 13:22Just wanted to some insight into others experiences with Absense seizures in toddlers. I have a son who is almost 3 years old. Has a very limited vocabulary, and although he babbles and makes an effort to communicate, he knows probably 20 words. We have him going to a speech therapist once a week, and we have even thought about the possibility of autism. A few weeks ago I started noticing that while we were playing cars, he was in the middle of something, he stopped, and looked off into the distance and then immediately went back to what he was doing. I thought it was very odd, but passed it off as thinking. Then, I noticed that he was doing it pretty often, for maybe 4 or 5 seconds at a time. In one instance I counted 4 times in a 5 minute period. I spoke with someone who had a relative who had these absense seizures and it had also affected their speech. I wanted to know, in this community who else has had any kind of experience with absense seizures in toddles, what the signs have been, how they were diagnosed, how they were developmentally, etc. It would be so incredibly helpful. Thank you!
Brandon
Comments
RE: RE: Absence Seizures in Toddlers
Submitted by rylwlf on Fri, 2005-02-25 - 14:03
Wendy,
Thank you so much. That is very encouraging news to hear. I am interested to know if there were any other developmental things about your son that were affected by the seizures besides his speech. Behavioral things, etc.
Thanks,
Brandon
Wendy,
Thank you so much. That is very encouraging news to hear. I am interested to know if there were any other developmental things about your son that were affected by the seizures besides his speech. Behavioral things, etc.
Thanks,
Brandon
RE: RE: RE: Absence Seizures in Toddlers
Submitted by wendymartinez on Fri, 2005-02-25 - 17:20
None that I'm aware of as of yet, and actually the speech problems began with fluency (hard to understand) and then he got a slight stutter. The speech therapist was ready to stop speech because his speech was age appropriate, than the Epilepsy started and he would have these setbacks where his stuttering would get real bad (on a scale from 1 to 5 he would be a 5 and having trouble getting words started mmmm.... mmmmmm....mmmmm....mmmmmmom) and then over the next week or two it would slowly get better until he was about a 1.5. I can't seem to find an answer from anyone as to weather the Epilepsy and the stuttering or medication and stuttering are related. The speech therapist says no and the Neurologist says possibly and thats why we uped his meds to see if it would help because he was on a very low dose that just barely controlled the seizures. I've posted on this site regarding any relation to Epilepsy and stuttering and got all sorts of replys, also posted on a stuttering site. Still don't have a definate answer.
All I know is the speech delays and stuttering started after the Epilepsy, so I think it is a totally separate thing. Did your son's speech delays start with the onset of the seizures or did he have speech delays prior?
As for other delays, I don't think he has any, but I am constantly sort of testing him to see if he can recite his alphabet and numbers and such to make sure he is still at an age appropriate level. Is your son on any medications for the seizures? have you seen a doctor or neurologist about them yet? I noticed the seizures for about a month before I finally took him to the doctor. I thought he might be daydreaming (they also only lasted seconds) or that it might go away. One thing that really made me believe they were seizures was that he had been potty trained for about a year prior to the seizures and never had accidents anymore and he was having frequent potty accidents and come to find out, when he would have a seizure he would loose control of his bladder and pee his pants if his bladder was full. Poor guy, but now he's just fine and can do anything any other 4 year old can do and hasn't had a seizure in about 5 months.
Nice talking with you.....let me know if you have any other questions.
Wendy
None that I'm aware of as of yet, and actually the speech problems began with fluency (hard to understand) and then he got a slight stutter. The speech therapist was ready to stop speech because his speech was age appropriate, than the Epilepsy started and he would have these setbacks where his stuttering would get real bad (on a scale from 1 to 5 he would be a 5 and having trouble getting words started mmmm.... mmmmmm....mmmmm....mmmmmmom) and then over the next week or two it would slowly get better until he was about a 1.5. I can't seem to find an answer from anyone as to weather the Epilepsy and the stuttering or medication and stuttering are related. The speech therapist says no and the Neurologist says possibly and thats why we uped his meds to see if it would help because he was on a very low dose that just barely controlled the seizures. I've posted on this site regarding any relation to Epilepsy and stuttering and got all sorts of replys, also posted on a stuttering site. Still don't have a definate answer.
All I know is the speech delays and stuttering started after the Epilepsy, so I think it is a totally separate thing. Did your son's speech delays start with the onset of the seizures or did he have speech delays prior?
As for other delays, I don't think he has any, but I am constantly sort of testing him to see if he can recite his alphabet and numbers and such to make sure he is still at an age appropriate level. Is your son on any medications for the seizures? have you seen a doctor or neurologist about them yet? I noticed the seizures for about a month before I finally took him to the doctor. I thought he might be daydreaming (they also only lasted seconds) or that it might go away. One thing that really made me believe they were seizures was that he had been potty trained for about a year prior to the seizures and never had accidents anymore and he was having frequent potty accidents and come to find out, when he would have a seizure he would loose control of his bladder and pee his pants if his bladder was full. Poor guy, but now he's just fine and can do anything any other 4 year old can do and hasn't had a seizure in about 5 months.
Nice talking with you.....let me know if you have any other questions.
Wendy
RE: Absence Seizures in Toddlers
Submitted by wendymartinez on Fri, 2005-02-25 - 13:54
Hi Brandon,
Your story sounds so familiar to me. I have a son now 4 yrs old and when he was almost 3 he barely spoke and the doctors were concerened, went to seech therapist through Kaiser hospital until 3yrs old (a lot of improvement) then at 3 we went throught the school district (free program and convenient as it was at my older son's school). His speech got real good and then he developed a stutter, which still comes and goes. Some days he speaks perfectly and other days he stutters a little.
At about 3 yrs 10 months, he started staring off just as you explained. We saw a neurologist and had and sleep deprived EEG and an MRI and discovered he does in fact have Epilepsy. I'm not sure of the exact name of his Epilepsy, however, the Neurologist explained that he has about an 80% chance of outgrowing it. He explained catching it in te early stages is good and it was important to control the seizures, if possible, with medication.
My husband and I, had great concernes about the side effects of all the meds, but felt it was important to get these seizures under control (he was having 4-8 noticable absence seizures a day and it would exhaust him and he was scared sometimes). Anyway, we started with a very low dose of Lamictal 5mg 2x a day and we slowly increased it. At about 15 mg 2x a day was when the seizures stoped. Since then we increased to 25mg 2x a day as the Neurologist suggested it might improve his speech, however, haven't noticed much change.
In the past, the thought of Autism crossed my mind once or twice (I never told anyone), but now It never does. He is doing great. He is in preschool and can write his name and count to 20 (misses a few here and there) and is very intelligent. Like I said, the speech comes and goes and changes from day to day or week to week, but it doesn't matter to us, we work on it with the speech terapist and are very patient on the bad days as it takes a while for him to get out what he wants to say sometimes.
Anyway, sorry to go on like that, just wanted to tell you my story and hopefully give you some positive thoughts as your son's story sounds so much like ours. Let me know how things go with him and if you have any other questions or just need to talk.
Wendy
Hi Brandon,
Your story sounds so familiar to me. I have a son now 4 yrs old and when he was almost 3 he barely spoke and the doctors were concerened, went to seech therapist through Kaiser hospital until 3yrs old (a lot of improvement) then at 3 we went throught the school district (free program and convenient as it was at my older son's school). His speech got real good and then he developed a stutter, which still comes and goes. Some days he speaks perfectly and other days he stutters a little.
At about 3 yrs 10 months, he started staring off just as you explained. We saw a neurologist and had and sleep deprived EEG and an MRI and discovered he does in fact have Epilepsy. I'm not sure of the exact name of his Epilepsy, however, the Neurologist explained that he has about an 80% chance of outgrowing it. He explained catching it in te early stages is good and it was important to control the seizures, if possible, with medication.
My husband and I, had great concernes about the side effects of all the meds, but felt it was important to get these seizures under control (he was having 4-8 noticable absence seizures a day and it would exhaust him and he was scared sometimes). Anyway, we started with a very low dose of Lamictal 5mg 2x a day and we slowly increased it. At about 15 mg 2x a day was when the seizures stoped. Since then we increased to 25mg 2x a day as the Neurologist suggested it might improve his speech, however, haven't noticed much change.
In the past, the thought of Autism crossed my mind once or twice (I never told anyone), but now It never does. He is doing great. He is in preschool and can write his name and count to 20 (misses a few here and there) and is very intelligent. Like I said, the speech comes and goes and changes from day to day or week to week, but it doesn't matter to us, we work on it with the speech terapist and are very patient on the bad days as it takes a while for him to get out what he wants to say sometimes.
Anyway, sorry to go on like that, just wanted to tell you my story and hopefully give you some positive thoughts as your son's story sounds so much like ours. Let me know how things go with him and if you have any other questions or just need to talk.
Wendy