Otitis Media and Linguistic Incompetence

In the examination of some effects of chronic middle ear disorders on the development of auditory processing skills in socioculturally disadvantaged children, three groups of children received a battery of tests assessing speech hearing in quiet, speech hearing in noise, auditory discrimination, phonemic synthesis, dichotic listening, verbal intelligence, and nonverbal intelligence. The experimental group consisted of 14 Australian aboriginal children with histories of chronic middle disorder, whereas two control groups, one European and the other aboriginal, each contained 18 children with normal middle ear function. The results demonstrated that chronic middle ear impairment not only restricts the development of some auditory processing skills, but distorts their integrational pattern.