Motor Speech Phenotypes in Children With Epilepsy: Preliminary Findings.

PURPOSE This exploratory study aimed to characterize motor speech impairments in a small sample of children with epilepsy, both with and without a known seizure etiology. A secondary aim was to evaluate the validity of the Profile for Childhood Apraxia of speech and Dysarthria (ProCAD), a newly developed tool for differential diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech and dysarthria. METHOD Thirteen children with seizure disorders completed a comprehensive speech and language assessment. Three expert speech-language pathologists rated the presence of auditory-perceptual features of motor speech impairment using the ProCAD. Motor speech features, diagnoses, and standardized test scores were compared between children with a known seizure etiology and children with idiopathic epilepsy. RESULTS Nine of the 13 children exhibited motor speech impairment; dysarthria was the most common diagnosis. Most children (11/13) exhibited language impairment. Group comparisons showed that children with a known seizure etiology had more atypical motor speech features and lower language scores than children with idiopathic seizures. CONCLUSION These preliminary findings suggest a high rate of motor speech impairment among children with epilepsy.

目的 这项探索性研究旨在描述一小部分癫痫儿童（无论是否有已知的癫痫病因）的运动性言语障碍特征。第二个目的是评估儿童言语失用症和构音障碍评估量表（ProCAD）的有效性，这是一种新开发的用于儿童言语失用症和构音障碍鉴别诊断的工具。 方法 13名患有癫痫的儿童完成了全面的言语和语言评估。三名专业的言语 - 语言病理学家使用ProCAD对运动性言语障碍的听觉 - 感知特征进行评级。对已知癫痫病因的儿童和特发性癫痫儿童的运动性言语特征、诊断结果和标准化测试分数进行了比较。 结果 13名儿童中有9名表现出运动性言语障碍；构音障碍是最常见的诊断结果。大多数儿童（13名中的11名）表现出语言障碍。分组比较显示，已知癫痫病因的儿童比特发性癫痫儿童具有更多的非典型运动性言语特征且语言分数更低。 结论 这些初步研究结果表明癫痫儿童中运动性言语障碍的发生率较高。