Attention Deficit Disorder or Petit Mal - Would you know the difference?
One family's journey to help a child, a story every parent should read.
A Quiet Child
She was the sweetest baby, so quiet, so calm. Amanda wasn't anything like her older brother, who was always busy and boisterous. I remember bragging about my "introspective". Language came easily for her, and she seemed fascinated by the world around her. Her father and I were so impressed by her ability to just sit and quite literally watch the flowers grow, we thought we had an artistic soul on our hands.
It wasn't until she was much older and starting school that we even considered that our child was different in some way. She didn't attend preschool, so it was during her Kindergarten year that subtle signs told us that learning wasn't going to come easy for Amanda. She had trouble focusing on the teacher, and didn't seem to catch on to writing her name and reading letters off the blackboard. Often she spent playtime sitting by herself. We began to think of Amanda as a day dreamer.
A Frustrated Child
By the third grade, it was obvious that learning was more than an average challenge for her. While she had an above average vocabulary, she could barely read. We worked harder than ever, using various at home phonics programs and extra reading materials to encourage her reading skills. Nothing worked. Amanda became frustrated and withdrawn. Convinced that she wasn't smart, her self esteem plummeted.
A Small Blessing
Three weeks after Amanda began the third grade, I gave birth to another daughter. Shortly after Sarah's birth, we noticed our tiny daughter's body shake, almost violently. We rushed her to the hospital, where a CT scan showed abnormal brain matter, and an EEG showed activity consistent with seizures. If Sarah's brain was different, could it be that Amanda's was as well? We made an appointment for Amanda to see her pediatrician.
Ray of Hope
As Amanda had never shown any signs of a seizure disorder, other physical problems were ruled out. Her hearing and eyesight were normal, her heart and lungs were fine. By all outward accounts she was an extremely healthy eight year old. - Until they tested her with an EEG, or Electroencephalograph, which detects the electrochemical relay of information from brain cell to brain cell. The phrase her physician used to describe her results was "markedly abnormal".
My daughter was diagnosed as suffering from an uncommon and often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed form of seizure disorder known as absence, or petit mal seizures. This type of disorder affects about one in every five hundred people, and is in many cases difficult to detect. The person having an absence seizure may appear completely normal in every way, other than a cease in activity. In Amanda's case, she simply appeared to be a day dreamer.
Detection and Treatment
Absence seizures are difficult to detect, and as in our case, a physician may be reluctant to perform an expensive EEG when no clear symptoms are present. If your child is a constant day dreamer, appears "off in his own world", and has trouble learning, you might consider asking your physician to perform this simple test.
Treatment
Treatment is generally a form of anti-seizure medication. In Amanda's case, from the day she began taking her prescribed medication, her learning ability improved dramatically. Within three weeks she was reading beginner books, and within a year she was within the range of normal reading ability for her age. The downside for Amanda was the side effects of the medication. While her learning seemed to improve, she became increasingly "sleepy", until she was falling asleep in school.
A Solution?
What's a parent to do? We removed Amanda from her elementary school midyear and began a home school program. We soon realized that Amanda was sleeping a minimum of fourteen hours in a day, and took her off the anti-seizure medication. A year later, after a follow-up EEG which was still abnormal, her pediatrician referred us to a new neurologist. This new Doctor had extensive experience with a variety of neurologic disorders, and after a battery of tests, concluded that Amanda did in fact suffer from a form of Inattentive Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD. Is it possible that the abnormality in her brain caused her to have both petit mal and ADD? Or was she originally misdiagnosed. We may never really know. As medical science improves, we hold out hope that the answer will be found.
If Amanda's story sounds similar to your own, consider talking to your child's physician. Amanda's case is far from abnormal, and is in fact probably much more common than we know. Girls with ADD are most frequently undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, as they generally do not display the typical "hyper" behavior. Adults can also have ADD and may display similar behavior that is attributed to irresponsibility, forgetfulness, or impulsiveness. There are many web sites that deal with these disorders, following are some suggestions:
ADD-
Http://www.borntoexplore.org/ Http://www.additudemag.com/ Http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm Http://www.chadd.org/
Petit Mal
Http://health.yahoo.com/health/encyclopedia/000696/0.html Http://www.fpnotebook.com/NEU209.htm http://health.discovery.com/diseasesandcond/encyclopedia/1854.html
About the Author
Michelle Gonzalez is the editor of both www.youthweekly.com and www.inspiredparent.com . A mother of three, she enjoys writing articles as well as poems and stories in her spare time. Her passions around childrens literacy and good parenting led her to create her two successful ezines.
Written by: Michelle Gonzalez
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