The Effect of Otitis Media with Effusion at Preschool Age on Some Aspects of Auditory Perception at School Age

Abstract

The relationship between otitis media with effusion (OME) at preschool age and performance on five tests of auditory perception was studied in 89 school-age children who had OME histories well documented from participation in serial screening for OME at 2-4 yr of age. The tests used at 7.5-8 yr of age were: speech-in-noise, filtered speech, binaural fusion, dichotic speech, and auditory memory. A significant effect of OME was found on the speechin-noise test. No additional effects were demonstrated by this particular group of children. (Ear & Hearing 1994;15:224-231)

Otitis Media and Speech-in-Noise Recognition in School-Aged Children

“…Hartley and Moore [2005] did not find evidence that a history of OM affects detection thresholds in backward masking and simultaneous masking tasks in 6-and 8-year-old prospectively followed children with a lifetime known history of OM. Accordingly, Schilder et al [1994] did not find an effect of an OM history between 2 and 4 years on filtered speech, binaural fusion, dichotic speech, and auditory memory in 8-year-old children. Overall, there are thus no uniform results with regard to the longterm consequences of OM.…”

“…Middle-ear status should therefore be observed at least in these years. Besides the earlier mentioned auditory skills, Schilder et al [1994] have also investigated the effect of an OM history on SPiN perception. Although the authors found a significant effect of persistent OM on SPiN perception at school age, they could not determine with certainty whether it was caused by long-term consequences of OM.…”

“…In some of the studies examining SPiN recognition, a fixed signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio was chosen, which means that speech and background noise were adjusted to a specified level. For example, Majerus et al [2005] tested with S/N at +1 dB, and Schilder et al [1994] with an S/N ratio at +5 dB. A fixed S/N ratio means that speech was presented respectively 1 and 5 dB higher than the background noise.…”

Measures of Binaural Hearing in Children with a History of Asymmetric Otitis media with Effusion

“…In Nijmegen, a large cohort study has been under taken to study the long-term effects of OME [7,21 ]. Of the birth cohort of 1983 of more than 1400 children.…”

“…Psychophysical studies have shown that children with a history of OME produce deviating results on several types of speech recognition tests [1,[4][5][6]. In general, effects of early OME on auditory pro cessing have been found in short-term evalua tions but to a lesser degree in the long term [4,5,7], This could mean that there is a gradual recovery of auditory processing capabilities after the OME episodes (and the associated hearing loss) have been resolved.…”