Aicardi's presentation on epilepsy at the 1998 InternationalChild Neurology Association conference in Ljubljana,Slovenia, started dramatically by using the iceberg, withlarger amounts of ice below the surface, as an analogy forepilepsy. He then talked about the phenomena associatedwith epilepsy - the learning and behaviour problems.Beckung and Uvebrant titled their 1997 paper on epilepsy‘Hidden dysfunction in childhood epilepsy’. ‘Hidden’ and‘under the surface’ maybe, but hidden from whom? I suspectyoung people with epilepsy and their parents have been wellaware for many years of some of these associated problems.But health professionals presented with children withepilepsy have concentrated too much on the convulsiveepisode itself and ignored the broader spectrum.