daughter with no known reason for developmantal delays

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sblake

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Hello. I am new to this site. I joined because I have a thousand questions and then some on the possibility of my 9 year daughter having absence seizures. Is it possible that this could be the reason for her difficulty in learning when I am sure she is smart enough to learn things yet she is still unable to read? Would it explain why she had a failure to thrive starting at about 12 months of age. She has consistently been about two years behind her peers since then.
She was diagnosed with ADD (inattentiveness) but the medication made her zone so far out it was scary. Her DR has ordered an EEG (tomorrow). Does anyone understand what I am asking? I just want to know if there is someone out there that might be able to relate to what I am going through. Honestly, I don't even mind if she is diagnosed or not. Sure a diagnosis of epilepsy is scary but I think not knowing anything is worse.
 
Hi sblake :hello: Welcome to CWE!!!

It's definitely easier to know what to do when you know what is going on and what's causing the symptoms. It's easy to see that there is something neurological going on with your daughter, but I won't be quick to diagnose her as being epileptic. I'll let the doctors do that.

One thing you can do is research nutrition and it's role in neurological disorders. MSG's, aspartame, gluten, caffeine, excitotoxins, preservatives, and other additives in our foods are major contributors to all neurological disorders (including ADD and epilepsy). I recommend getting the book Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills. This really helped me when approaching the treatment of my son's epilepsy.

Altering my son's diet has made him almost completely symptom free. This is really worth checking out while you are waiting for your answers. Who knows, you may find the answers before the doctors do :)
 
HI and welcome,

your daughter could definitely have learning probs if she is having absence seizures. If she is zoning out periodically during the school day, she'd be missing instruction etc. That would be especially true if it happens a lot. Some folks on here say they have 40+ absence seizures a day. That would or could certainly impact learning. And I think absence seizures could certainly be mistaken for ADD. You know being inattentive etc.

There are a lot of learning disabilities out there that could be causing your daughter's problems. My 10 yr old, who doesn't have seizures, has lower muscle tone and some kind of lang expressive disorder. We had her in special ed preschool and still is under the special ed umbrella. It's only now that we are getting her up to speed in PT/OT ( she does okay academically with modifications) that we are looking for a neuro label so we can keep her under the umbrella and keep the extra support she needs for Middle school next year. We think she has developmental coordination disorder. It explains my daughter to a tee, atleast according to her PT. Anywho the neuro ran a lot of tests to rule out other issues. I guess we'll get the final report this coming Thurs.

Atleast if you get a dx, you can get your daughter some special ed help.
 
Hi Sblake

Welcome to CWE

I am one of the people on the forum that Sixpack was talking about when she mentioned 40+ absence seizures a day. Although they were less then that when I was a kid.

Yes, I used to zone out in the classroom, losing valuable snippets of information, sometimes it would be difficult to catch up on the conversation/lesson. But the seizures themselves never caused me to get behind my age group, they just meant that I couldn't always answer questions in class because I either didn't hear them in the first place or seized just as I was about to answer them.

I agree it is always best to know what you are dealing with, I hope everything goes well with the eeg tomorrow. If you have any further questions about absences, feel free to ask.

Take care

Kim
 
Dear sblake ,
have you considered dyslexia? not uncommon with ADD and it could explain the fact that she learns perfectly well but dislikes reading. it is classical of a child with dyslexia that they love being read to but dislike reading story books by themselves. Other possibilities are the cognitive deficit is linked to her seizures or perhaps a side effect of AEDs she is taking. Best of luck with the eeg
 
Hi sblake, welcome to the forum. :hello:

I'd highly recommend you look into EEG neurofeedback for the ADD.



It can also help with seizure control (and/or autism). My wife used to have multiple daily absence seizures over a decade ago, but they dissappeared completely after she used neurofeedback.
 
Hi sblake! Welcome to CWE. :) I'm a special ed. teacher. And to answer your question, yes...the seizures might be causing the learning delays. Think of an absence sieuzure as being like when your TV cuts out during a storm.. You're trying to watch an educational program on TV, and your TV starts cutting out....so you only catch bits and pieces...and after awhile, those bits and pieces get harder and harder to string together so that they make sense. After a while, you give up....why? Because your knowledge is so patchy, and pretty soon your spending all of your time trying to piece information together and it just gets too hard. Your daughter may have been having absences for a very long time, and hundred of them a day....so even her language might be delayed....
 
:hello:

I can relate entirely to your post, having been
through it all. In fact, I was mislabeled as "ADHD"
but they removed that later on because I did not
fit the categorization of person having ADHD at all.
(This was before they split ADD/ADHD and even
with the split of this, I don't have ADD either.)
Moreover, I was born with neurological issues which
includes Epilepsy - so School was a struggle back
then; in part - I had seizures, only that they didn't
"catch" it or realized it was happening. My area was
rural back then, nothing like it is today. Even though
I've had numerous EEG's and been neuropsych'd
to death throughout the years. The irony of it all
was I had been in accelerated classes (higher than
advanced) so I didn't meet the criteria of "Special
Education" but yet I needed the "Special Education"
program in partial due to the neurological problems,
however, I was already involved with this long before
having been in pre-school anyway, so it was not a
"new" thing for me. I was already used to going to
the Hospital three times a week for speech, language,
and memory - it wasn't until years later until that
self-same program eventually ended up being in
School so I wouldn't have to be taken out of School
and head to the Hospital.

So it can be quite the challenge to put all the puzzle
together and sort things out when all the puzzle pieces
are scattered everywhere!

Moreover - let's hope the EEG will reflect everything
and will begin the make the first step and move in
the advancement to the proper diagnostic and care
for your child.

Trust me, times have changed tremendously since
I was little - I've seen it all and been through it all.

:tup:

Keep us posted of all the progress!
 
Hi. My daughter who just turned 9 has had absence seizures since she was 3. The pre-school teacher reported seeing them about 45 times in the 4 hour period that she was in the class. Up until the middle of last year she was doing okay in school. This year has been horrible. Kater doesn't understand anything about that math that they are learning. And while she reads at her grade level, she can't write well. She often makes spelling errors on common words, and will misspell words that she is copying. (she doesn't have dyslexia though...)

She recently had neuropsych testing done that confirmed that she isn't at the same IQ level that she was 2 years ago, and that some of the things she got correct 2 years ago, she failed this time around. As of now I am waiting for the social worker and psychologist from the school to read the reports and decide when we can meet, and hopefully get her the help that she needs.

Good Luck with the EEG, and hopefully you can get some answers.
 
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