seizures and developmental delays

Our son is 3 years, 4 months old. He seemed to be developing at a "normal pace" with his milestones until he was about 13 months old, at which time he was diagnosed with myoclonic ataxic seizures of Dosse'. They have been under control with depakote for some time now. Our son also has many delays, the worse being speech, only being able to say about 50 words, few 2 word sentences. He was recently seen by a genetisist, who ran some labs which were all normal, and also a developmentalist. She said that our son was at risk for mental retardation, having global delays that affect every area of his development(gross and fine motor,receptive and expressive language,cognitive, play, self help and social skills. He also still has a lot of drooling and he can be very aggressive at times. Her impression was that he may have static encephalopathy. Our question is: Is there any way of determining what was the cause and when it happened? We were also wondering if it could have been caused by his vaccines that he received. Is there any way of finding out if it was the cause? Other than therapy which he receives, is there anything else that we can do to try to stimulate his learning ability to the fullest?

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Dear Mr. Henry,

It can be very difficult to ascertain precisely what occurs when a child develops fine during the first year and then does not. There are certain types of Pervasive Developmental Disorder characterized by such a process, but your son's presentation really does not match the general pattern seen in such cases of PDD. The developmental specialist ascribes the problems to brain damage which appears not to be progressive in nature. But, as you pose, what brought about the brain damage? Did it occur toward the end of his first year? Or, was it present earlier, but not really evident. Sometimes brain damage doesn't become obvious until the range of children's developmental abilities broadens and movement, speech, social interaction, etc. begim to take hold. It may not be possible to say with certainty what occurred. It does make sense to pursue this with your son's doctors, to consider specifically the types of conditions that might apply when a child appears to develop well through the first year and then deteriorates.

Relative to intervention, keep cooperating with the various specialties, and make sure he is receiving early intervention services throuth the public school system.