More Than Seizures: Helping Children with Epilepsy Learn

Experiencing or witnessing a seizure can be frightening, particularly if the seizure occurs in a child. While it is critical to diagnose and apply the best approach to treating seizures, the impact of epilepsy on a child's life often goes beyond the seizures themselves.

According to the Epilepsy Foundation, about 300,000 children under the age of 14 are living with epilepsy in the United States. Doctors are now finding that many of these children may have learning and behavioral problems that go unrecognized, and that these problems do not necessarily go away when a child outgrows epilepsy.

Below, Doug Nordli, MD, the director of pediatric epilepsy at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, discusses epilepsy in children—and how doctors, parents and teachers can improve life for children with epilepsy.

What is epilepsy?
Epilepsy is a medical condition where children are at risk for unprovoked or spontaneous seizures. It has many different causes and presentations and is one of the most common neurologic problems that we deal with in children.

At what age does epilepsy usually appear?
Risk is highest in the first year of life; about 150 children per 100,000 develop epilepsy in the first year of life. It decreases to an average of about 53 per 100,000 if you consider all of childhood. Levels drop further in adulthood, to around 10 or 20 per 100,000. The curve takes off again above age 75.

If a child has a single seizure, does that mean that they have epilepsy?
No, a single seizure doesn't mean a child has epilepsy. Some seizures are provoked, such as a seizure that occurs in the context of fever. In that case, the event is referred to as a febrile seizure, and it's not epilepsy. About 42 percent of children who have a single, unprovoked seizure will have recurrent seizures in the following years. So if a child has recurrent, unprovoked seizures are they considered to have epilepsy.

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