Epilepsy with typical absence seizures with onset during the first year of life.

Absence epilepsy with multiple daily seizures and onset at the age of 6 and 1/2 months in a healthy female child with normal development is described. EEG-video recording revealed typical absence seizures (vacant staring and interruption of motor activity) and complex absences (as above, plus raising of the eyeballs, slight beatings of the eyebrows, and forward propulsion of head and shoulders). The absences were accompanied by bilateral symmetrical 3-Hz spike-wave discharges preceded, and at times followed, by bilateral frontoparietal theta activity coinciding with onset and termination of the absence seizures. The seizures regressed with nitrazepam therapy. At age 3-years, the child is seizure-free and shows normal neurologic development.