Description

This video by TV360 offers you expert advice on the reason why autistic children are prone to seizures.

Transcript

Why Autistic Children Are Prone to Seizures Mark: Hi, my name is Mark. I'm 26 years old. I'm in Austin. I am curios why is there a heightened risk for seizures in autistic children? Catherine Rice: Mark, in terms of what seizures are, seizures are unusual electrical activity in the brain and they can be caused by a variety of reasons and some cases it's a particular disease, it's the lack of blood flow. It's unusual electrical activity in the brain band that can be caused by multiple things. In the case of autism, we also know that autism is also caused by unusual brain development. Why they go together, we’re not quite sure and they don’t go together for every individual with autism. We know about between 15 and 25% of people with autism have seizures at some point during their life, typically very early in life or during adolescence is when they first occur. So at this point, what we best know is that there is something unusual going on in the development of the brain and if a child has seizures and autism, it's very important to address both the features of autism and the seizure activity to help the child develop to the best that the child can.