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Introduction: Electrical status epilepticus during sleep (ESES) is an epileptic syndrome characterised by the presence of very persistent slow spike-wave-type epileptic discharges during non-REM sleep. The management of this pathology, today, is heterogeneous and no controlled studies have been conducted with the treatments employed; similarly, whether or not they improve patients' cognitive development or not has still to be determined., Patients and Methods: A review was carried out of the patients diagnosed with ESES at four hospitals over a period of 15 years; data concerning their clinical presentation, therapeutic management and clinical course were collected and compared with the literature., Results: Altogether 29 patients with ESES were detected, 20 of them idiopathic and 26 generalised. The drugs with which the greatest control of the electrical activity was achieved were corticoids/adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), clobazam and levetiracetam. In the primary cases ESES lasted an average of six months and the duration was twice that time in the secondary cases. Findings showed that the intelligence quotient remained normal in 45% of patients and 40% presented differing degrees of cognitive disability in the course of the pathology., Conclusions: The developmental neuropsychological prognosis is usually unfavourable and the cognitive development seems to be related with the duration of ESES and the area where the epileptic activity is concentrated, which suggests that the poor prognosis can be avoided if treatment is established at an early stage. The antiepileptic drugs that are most commonly used are valproic acid, ethosuximide and levetiracetam, and in our milieu clobazam and lamotrigine were commonly employed. The most effective drugs for controlling ESES were corticoids/ACTH, clobazam and levetiracetam.

Introduction: We present neuropsychosomatic disorders diagnosed and treated during the period 1994-1997., Patients and Methods: A total of 83 cases, 24 boys and 59 girls, were selected according to suspected diagnosis. Their ages were in relationship with the psychosomatic disorder. This 83 cases is 10% of neuropediatric assistance in the period. A protocol was designed for disclosing any organic pathology. The psychopedagogic method is based on the PASS theory of intelligence and emotion processing theory of masquerade behavior. The success was defined after a period of, at least, two years of follow-up., Results: Cephalalgia was the most frequent diagnosis. Language and learning difficulties, attention deficit disorder and pseudo-epilepsy were also frequent. Other diagnoses were: amblyopia, paralysis, pseudo-autism, tic, sphincter disorder, vertigo, mutism and sleep disorder., Discussion: Concerning differential diagnosis, it must be emphasized that complex partial epilepsy of frontal lobe can mimic psychosomatics disorder as short, less than one minute, automatism. Partial epilepsy of temporal lobe may also mimic psychosomatic disorder but epilepsy does not respond to psychopedagogic remediation. Tumor and migraine must be also disclosed in case of cephalalgia but they do not respond to psychopedagogic remediation. Neurological scientific bases of emotion processing theory are widely explained., Conclusion: Cognition and emotion are functions of the central nervous system so they are competency of neuropediatrician. On the other hand, it is convenient for neuropediatrician to know about behavioral analysis in order to improve diagnosis and economical cost.

This paper comments on Hagiwara's (1994b, this volume) proposals to account for the language deficits found in agrammatic aphasia, with special emphasis on Functional Categories (FCs). Some contemporary assumptions about FCs are reviewed focusing on their contentfulness, morphological features, and depiction as a heterogeneous set. This paper also discusses the view that the target of impairment in agrammatism constitutes a natural class. Treatment of FCs in their connection to chains and Lexical-Relatedness is discussed in terms of feature checking and morphological characteristics.