STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS Attention and Reading Deficits in Children’s Absence Epilepsy

Children’s Absence Epilepsy (CAE) is a disorder that a!ects children as early as the age of six and manifests itself in frequent absence seizures. CAE generally presents with an array of co-morbidities, speci"cally learning disorders that impact reading ability. Although these co-morbidities have been identi"ed, little has been done to propose a model for their interaction thus far. This study seeks to produce a model of the e!ects of CAE on learning abilities by examining the mechanism of these de"cits and investigates whether there is a direct relationship between seizure frequency and reading de"cits, or if they are a result of concurrent attention de"cits.