Language and Epilepsy

There are numerous books dealing with epilepsy but none of them is entirely devoted to the manifold relationships between language and epilepsy. The present monograph focuses on the verbal shortcomings, disorders, deviances, and peculiarities which may be observed in patients with epilepsy, and endeavors to uncover the links between the observed linguistic features and the disturbance of bio--electrical activity that characterizes epilepsy. It describes the many verbal impairments and involuntary verbal behaviours which may occur during epileptic seizures, depicts the various types of language--induced reflex epilepsy, discusses the possible relations between stuttering and epilepsy and between literary production and epilepsy, analyses the verbal consequences of surgery for intractable epilepsy, and deals extensively with the durable verbal deficits which may be due to, or be concomitant with, some forms of abnormal bio--electrical brain activity. The book is meant primarily for clinicians and caretakers who are professionally concerned with epilepsy. However, it is written in such a way that it can be easily understood by lay people who would like to gain an insight into the nature of epilepsy and into the verbal phenomena which may accompany it.