Landau-Kleffner Sendromu: Olgu Sunumu

Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS) is acquired aphasia circumstance with loss of gained language ability and epilepti form electroencephalography or clinical seizure described first in 1957 by Landau and Kleffner. Expressive aphasia starts commonly among children of 3 to 8 age group and verbal auditor agnosia are other clinical features of LKS. Patients have difficulty in understanding what they are being told and respond to visual as well as auditory arousals. Seizure is seen in 70% of the cases. Patients with LKS usually develop normally, but it has been reported that about 13% of the cases had speech ability problem previously. Due to resemblance of symptomatology, causals such as audition loss, deafness, psychiatric disorders, progressive encephalopathy, "Childhood Rolandic Epilepsy" should be considered as differential diagnoses of LKS. We have briefly discussed the clinical progress of an 8-year-old male child who was followed with prediagnosis of major depression by child psychiatry department because of agression, relationship problems with his friends and regression in his speech. His behavior problems and absence of seizures had delayed obtaining an EEG in the early period. Seizures started two years after the behavior problems and loss of speech. Thus, we suggest that if a child with normal language development starts to regress, Landau-Kleffner syndrome must be considered in the differential diagnosis even in the absence of epileptic seizures