Abstract
Unlikely Western countries, only recently who are within the normal range of intelligence quotient but have specific difficulties in schoolwork have become a great interest to the general public in Japan. These difficulties are termed learning disabilities or learning disorders. Some studies about children with learning disorders reported that children with learning disorders sometimes showed the epileptic seizures and abnormalities in the electroencephalogram (EEG). My colleague and I have investigated the cognitive disorders in patients with localization related epilepsy (LRE) in childhood. As a result of our studies, we became interested in the relationship between the higher brain functional disorder and the working memory and the executive function. The working memory and the executive function are assumed to be associated with the learning disorders in children with LRE. It is suggested that the impairment of these functions can be the cause of disabilities in sentence comprehension, calculation, reasoning etc.. In this session I will summerize our neuropsychological studies in the children with LRE, present the latest research about the working memory and the executive function in the patients with LRE in childhood and discuss treatment from an educational standpoint.
