The chance that someone will develop any disease is influenced by heredity and environment. Epilepsy is not an exception. Everybody inherits a unique degree of susceptibility to seizures. About 3 percent of the United States population is prone to seizures and will get epilepsy at some point of their lives (1). Two thirds of the people with…

According to even the most conservative estimates, at least a quarter of deaf children have additional disabilities. Most teacher preparation programs do not sufficiently prepare teacher candidates for the challenges posed by these children. This article describes a professional development effort to prepare in-service educators of the deaf to…

Vitamin B[subscript 12] deficiency in infants often produces haematological and neurological deficits, including macrocytic anaemia, neurodevelopmental delay or regression, irritability, weakness, hypotonia, ataxia, apathy, tremor, and seizures. The diagnosis of vitamin B[subscript 12] deficiency can be difficult when the typical macrocytic…

The first case study of identical male twins concordant for DSM-IV Asperger's disorder (ASD) was presented. Their monozygocity was confirmed by short tandem repeat analyses with a probability of 99.999963%. Despite sharing the same DNA and environment, the twins are different in comorbidity (i.e., major depressive disorder in the elder and absence…

Background: The aim of the present study was to assess the health status of a cohort of adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD) residing in family homes or institutions in Taiwan and to examine whether morbidity varied with age, sex, existing diagnosis [Down syndrome (DS), seizures, cerebral palsy (CP), intellectual disability…

We studied expressive and receptive language, oral motor ability, attention, memory, and intelligence in 20 6-year-old children with epilepsy (14 females, six males; mean age 6y 5mo, range 6y-6y 11mo) without learning disability, cerebral palsy (CP), and/or autism, and in 30 reference children without epilepsy (18 females, 12 males; mean age 6y…

Background: We examined the presence of medical conditions and medication use within a sample of adults with Down syndrome. Methods: Retrospective chart review using a sample of 141 adults with Down syndrome and age range of 30 to 65 years. Results: We identify 23 categories of commonly occurring medical conditions and 24 categories of medications…

This article presents a 10-year-old child with a 5-year history of severe hyperactivity and inattention. His medical history is significant for epilepsy since 8 years of age, with six tonic-clonic seizures in the past 2 years. The seizures are well controlled with carbamazepine, with only one seizure in the past 6 months. On assessment, he meets…

The purpose of this study was to determine school nurses' knowledge of state and school district policies, their experience regarding the administration of rectal diazepam gel in the school, and the perceived benefits and barriers of providing this treatment. Four hundred nineteen nurses responded to a survey conducted during the National…

"Child Care Health Connections" is a bimonthly newsletter published by the California Childcare Health Program (CCHP), a community-based program of the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing, Department of Family Health Care Nursing. The goals of this newsletter are to promote and support a healthy and safe environment…

Epilepsy is one of the most common diseases to affect the human nervous system, affecting approximately 0.5% of school-age children (Leppik, 2001; Kaleyias et al., 2005). Epilepsy has the potential to profoundly impact a child's adjustment to school. A large body of literature documents that children with epilepsy are at an increased risk for…

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,…

Long-term synaptic enhancement in the hippocampus has been suggested to cause deficits in spatial performance. Synaptic enhancement has been reported after hippocampal kindling that induced repeated electrographic seizures or afterdischarges (ADs) and after long-term potentiation (LTP) defined as synaptic enhancement without ADs. We studied…

Research examining autistic symptoms in Angelman syndrome (AS) is limited. The goal of this study was to further characterize the nature of stereotyped behaviors, social interaction deficits, and developmental disturbances in individuals with AS. Parents of 248 individuals between the ages of 3 and 22 completed a survey of autistic symptomatology…

Background: Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common inherited form of intellectual disability. Since the identification of the responsible gene ("FMR1") and its protein (FMRP), there has been enormous progress in both clinical and pathogenetic research on the neurobehavioural aspects of the condition. However, studies regarding other medical…