Neuropsychological study in three patients with Landau-Kleffner syndrome

We describe 3 patients affected by Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS) with a mean follow-up of 5 years 8 months. The phonological, morphosyntactic and lexical levels of verbal functions have been evaluated by analysis of spontaneous language and a battery of linguistic tests. All patients showed auditory verbal agnosia and one patient showed nonverbal auditory verbal agnosia. Thus, one patient showed total aphasia, while two patients showed severe expressive language impairment. During follow-up, all patients showed marked recovery of language skills without any intellectual handicap, but with a mild disability in morphosyntactic levels of verbal functions and in verbal fluency, short-term memory and learning difficulty in reading and writing. The prognosis of Landau-Kleffner syndrome in our patients may depend on the interactions of different factors such as localization, duration and continuity of paroxysmal activity during sleep. It is important for the prognosis to utilize antiepileptic treatment to eliminate the activation of interjetai epileptic discharges during sleep.