Numerous studies have shown that epilepsy can interfere with motor, cognitive, as well as behavioural development of children. Indeed, most studies have investigated mental efficiency, executive functions, memory, language, and/or attention in young epileptic patients. However, visual cognition remains rarely assessed in these studies.

The current review aims to briefly present the different cerebral visual impairments ( i.e. binocular reduction of visual acuity or visual field extent resulting from neurological damage) and cerebral visual dysfunctions ( i.e. disturbances in visual perception and integration from neurological damage) previously described in epileptic children. Although data remains sparse, several authors reported impaired visual processing in most of the epilepsy cases including when the epileptic focus does not reach posterior areas (occipital lobe and temporo-parieto-occipital regions). This raises the question of the contribution of visual deficit in impaired executive functions as well as the relevance of a non-verbal efficiency measure (what are the relationships between non-verbal efficiency and impaired visual processing?). On the other hand, for children with a neurovisual disorder without brain lesions detectable on imaging, the use of classic models of neuro-anatomical correlates of epilepsy is suggested to better apprehend the neural correlates of the neurovisual disorder. Conversely, children with brain lesion and cerebral visual impairment or dysfunction would also provide a neuro-anatomical model for epileptic children with a neurovisual disorder but no brain lesion. Finally, it is noteworthy that studies in epilepsy used neuropsychological tools to investigate cognitive functions; yet, an experimental paradigm would provide more detailed data which would help us to better understand visual disorders in epilepsy.