Otitis Media, Language Development, and Parental Verbal Stimulation

Abstract

Examined the impact of recurrent otitis media in the first 3 years of life on verbal abilities of 3- to 4-year-old children and the potential for parental verbal stimulation to buffer the negative effects of intermittent hearing loss. Fathers and mothers of 56 children with variable histories of otitis media participated in videotaped parent-child interactions that were used to code level of parental verbal stimulation. Measures of the children's verbal abilities were the McCarthy Verbal Scale Index and a score for the child's verbalizations with each parent. Active and engaging parental verbalizations appeared to buffer the child's developing verbal abilities from the deleterious effects of recurrent otitis. Post hoc analyses examined the implications of task structure and parent sex on parent verbal stimulation. Discussion addresses the importance of paternal involvement for the home language environment and implications for intervention.

Risk for Speech Disorder Associated With Early Recurrent Otitis Media With Effusion

“…On health care issues, the medical records of children in both studies indicated regular and excellent health care. Early and appropriate attention by physicians and caregivers has been cited as one of the major preventive variables in studies using diverse subject pools and independent and outcome measures (e.g., Apel & Marazzi, 1994;Black & Sonnenschein, 1993;Feldman & Gelman, 1986;Freeark et al, 1992;Paden, Matthies, & Novak, 1989;Roberts et al, 1995).…”

Is chronic otitis media associated with differences in parental input at 12 months of age? An analysis of joint attention and directives

“…Although a few studies have found that mothers interact differently with their chronic and nonchronic children, this pattern is not replicated across studies and data interpretations are not always clear. Maternal verbal stimulation has been associated with receptive (Black et al, 1988) and expressive language scores (Freeark et al, 1992) in 5-and 3-year-olds, respectively, with histories of OM. Children with OM whose mothers use controlling language have been shown to have the lowest scores on measures of expressive language at 24 months, whereas children whose mothers provide information and encourage language use have language outcomes resembling those of otitis-free children (Wallace et al, 1996).…”

“…Several studies were focused on populations of children at risk before the presence of OM; and the majority of the children were from low socioeconomic status (SES) families (Black et al, 1988;Roberts et al, 1998) or had varying etiologies, such as histories of prematurity (Wallace et al, 1996). The one study that investigated children without additional risk factors was limited because of its retrospective design (Freeark et al, 1992). More accurate descriptions of the relationship between OM and language acquisition require the study of children who, with the exception of middle ear disease, are at low risk for developmental difficulties.…”

Possible Effects of Specific Auditory Stimulation (Johansen-IAS) on Language Development of a Group of Dyslexic Students

“…Leviton and Bellinger [35] concluded on the basis of a meta-analysis of several studies that there is a convincing association between early and persistent otitis media (causing periods of sensory deprivation) and later reduction in language function as measured by paraphrase quality. Freeark et al [36] measured the effect of variable otitis media, experienced in the first 3 years of life, on the verbal ability of 3-4 year old's. They found that the negative effects were ameliorated in children who typically participated in active and engaging parental verbal stimulation.…”

“…We have already discussed one example in relation to otitis media (Freeark et al) [36]. In relation to our discussion of the prevalence of left or right ear weakness, research has shown dichotic listening exercise to be beneficial to weaknesses in either ear by gradually strengthening the response following intensified stimulation to the weakened ear (Musiek & Schochat,[49].…”