Impact of benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS) on school performance.
BECTS represents the vast majority of childhood focal epilepsy. Owing to the age peculiarity of children who suffer from this disease, i.e., school-going age of between 6 and 9 years, the condition is often referred to as a school disorder by parents and teachers.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the academic performance of children with BECTS, according to the clinical and electroencephalographic ILAE criteria, and compare the results of neuropsychological tests of language and attention to the frequency of epileptic discharges.


METHODS
The performances of 40 school children with BECTS were evaluated by applying a school performance test (SBT), neuropsychological tests (WISC and Trail-Making), and language tests (Illinois Test Psycholinguistic Abilities-ITPA--and Staggered Spondaic Word-SSW). The same tests were applied in the control group.


RESULTS
Children with BECTS, when compared to those in the control group, showed lower scores in academic performance (SPT), digits and similarities subtests of WISC, auditory processing subtest of SSW, and ITPA--representational and automatic level. The study showed that epileptic discharges did not influence the results.


CONCLUSIONS
Children with BECTS scored significantly lower scores in tests on academic performance, when compared with those in the control group probably due to executive dysfunction.
Department of Pediatric Neurology, Hospital das Clínicas Faculty of Medicine, São Paulo University, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Carmen Silvia Molleis Galego
CS
Miziara
Maria Luiza Giraldes
ML
de Manreza
Letícia
L
Mansur
Umbertina Conti
UC
Reed
Laura Maria Figueiredo Ferreira
LM
Guilhoto
Virginia Aparecida Gelmeti
VA
Serrano
Solange
S
Góis
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D004569:Electroencephalography; D019305:Epilepsy, Rolandic / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests