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Objectives. To analyze the central auditory nervous system function through behavioral and electrophysiological tests in children with a history of otitis media and subsequent bilateral tubes placement surgery. Methods. The participants were divided into two groups between eight and 14 years old: control group (CG) consisted of 40 children with no history of otitis media; experimental group (EG) consisted of 50 children with documented history of otitis media and undertook a surgery for bilateral tubes placement. All children completed audiological evaluation (audiometry, speech audiometry, and immittance audiometry), behavioral evaluation (tests: dichotic digits, synthetic sentence identification with ipsilateral competing message, gaps-in-noise, frequency pattern), and electrophysiological evaluation (Auditory Brainstem Response, ABR, Frequency Following Response, FFR (verbal), and Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential, LLAEP). Results. The EG group showed significantly poorer performance (p<0.001) than the CG for all auditory abilities studied. The results revealed significant latency delays and reduced amplitude (p<0.05) of waves III and V for ABR; significant latency delay was seen of potentials P2, N2, and P300 for LLAEP; significant latency delays and reduced amplitude (p<0.05) were observed for FFR in children with a history of otitis media. Conclusion. The results demonstrate negative effect of otitis media in the auditory abilities and electrophysiological measures in children with a history of otitis media.

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Background: It is believed that auditory processing occurs normally in people who can sing in tune and improperly in people who cannot. Auditory feedback seems to be a crucial factor in the way the voice is produced and monitored. Evaluation of auditory processing using the Frequency Following Response (FFR) allows fine-grained neural processing to be objectively identified and might be a way of differentiating between those who sing in-tune and those who sing off-tune.The aim of this study was to analyse the FFR responses of people who can sing in-tune and compare them to those who sing off-tune.Material and methods: FFR responses were recorded in 37 adults who were assigned to one of two groups: (i) a control group (CG) consisting of 17 adults who could sing in-tune (ii) an experimental group (EG) consisting of 20 adults who sang off-tune.Results: There were statistically significant differences in the electro-physiological responses of the EG compared to the CG for the latencies of waves A, C, D, and F in the right ear. In contrast, FFR amplitude measurements did not seem to be a suitable parameter for identifying changes in the coding of speech sounds.Conclusions: FFR responses in the EG showed a different pattern from the CG group, with a number of longer latencies in the EG. However, FFR amplitude did not differ significantly between the groups.