Abstract

The symptom of excessive sleepiness in children and adolescents does not necessarily cause great concern to families and professionals involved in their care. Children may deny the symptom and minimise the adverse effects. These factors contribute to an underdiagnosis of narcolepsy in this age group when clinical diagnosis is difficult as associated symptoms may not have appeared or are hard to elicit. In this paper three children whose difficult behaviour contributed to the presentation of their sleep disorder are described.