Difficulties Subscribe to our newsletter. The term Learning Disabilities covers a wide range of conditions, abilities and needs. The person who has a learning disability may need help to understand and make sense of things, or physical support for their everyday life. The range of abilities that come under this term can vary greatly from one person to another, from mild to complex and can include sensory, physical or mental health needs too.
Epilepsy affects a wide variety of people of all levels of intelligence.
Some kinds of epilepsy are associated with brain damage, as are some forms of learning disabilities. Therefore, it is likely that some people with brain damage will have both epilepsy and learning disabilities. Learning disabilities can be caused by serious brain damage, for example, from a blow to the head, a difficult birth, or a brain infection such as meningitis or encephalitis, and these can also be factors in the likelihood of developing epilepsy. The part of the brain, which was injured by physical damage or by infection, becomes irritable and forms a focus for epilepsy. The resulting seizures, however, may not appear for many years after the damaging episode.