Long-Term Impacts of Otitis Media
While it is difficult to argue against the evidence that otitis media has negative short-term effects on children’s ability to learn language and function in a noisy classroom, there is much more equivocation about the kind of long-term effects that otitis media can have on children’s education, reading skills, and language knowledge. Golz, A., Westerman, S., Westerman, L., Gilbert, D., and Netzer, A. (2006) claim that as soon as hearing is restored, any reading problems previously observed lose any basis when the child is evaluated again. Williams and Jacobs (2009) counter, “There is clear evidence that some patterns of the disease do predict long-term negative outcomes for speech and language. Early onset, more frequent infections, and infections of longer duration have all been shown to act as risk factors for long-term consequences.” Zumach, A., Gerrits, E., Chenault, M., & Anteunis, L (2010) determined that “the positive relation that was found between OM-related HL and language development at 27 months could no longer be …show more content…
(2010), however, took their investigation farther, and examined the hearing loss that results from otitis media as a separate factor in the long-term impact of otitis media. “As periods of [otitis media] can occur without auditory reduction, the underlying hearing loss might be a better predictor of language problems. This is confirmed… as we found that the number of [otitis media] incidents was not positively related to language scores at early life, whereas [hearing loss] was found to be related.” The only certain reason that a child’s language would continue to be affected by otitis media past early childhood is if the middle ear problems persist as the child grows. In these children, reading will still be impaired as long as the middle ear
While it is difficult to argue against the evidence that otitis media has negative short-term effects on children’s ability to learn language and function in a noisy classroom, there is much more equivocation about the kind of long-term effects that otitis media can have on children’s education, reading skills, and language knowledge. Golz, A., Westerman, S., Westerman, L., Gilbert, D., and Netzer, A. (2006) claim that as soon as hearing is restored, any reading problems previously observed lose any basis when the child is evaluated again. Williams and Jacobs (2009) counter, “There is clear evidence that some patterns of the disease do predict long-term negative outcomes for speech and language. Early onset, more frequent infections, and infections of longer duration have all been shown to act as risk factors for long-term consequences.” Zumach, A., Gerrits, E., Chenault, M., & Anteunis, L (2010) determined that “the positive relation that was found between OM-related HL and language development at 27 months could no longer be …show more content…
(2010), however, took their investigation farther, and examined the hearing loss that results from otitis media as a separate factor in the long-term impact of otitis media. “As periods of [otitis media] can occur without auditory reduction, the underlying hearing loss might be a better predictor of language problems. This is confirmed… as we found that the number of [otitis media] incidents was not positively related to language scores at early life, whereas [hearing loss] was found to be related.” The only certain reason that a child’s language would continue to be affected by otitis media past early childhood is if the middle ear problems persist as the child grows. In these children, reading will still be impaired as long as the middle ear