NEW YORK — Reading performance will return to normal in children who have lagged behind because of hearing impairment associated with chronic middle ear infections, Avishay Golz, M.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation.
“Reading performance is not affected once these children are healed and their hearing is restored,” said Dr. Golz of Ramban Medical Center, Haifa, Israel. “They catch up very rapidly to the same level as children who have never had otologic problems.”
Dr. Golz presented the results of a follow-up study on the reading performance of 75 children with chronic middle ear infection; the same group was the subject of a similar study he conducted 4 years ago.
At that time, the children were in first or second grade; they are now in fifth or sixth grade.
In the initial study, Dr. Golz found that the children with chronic ear infections and associated hearing loss made significantly more mistakes in a reading exercise than their classmates, who were matched for gender, age, socioeconomic status, and culture.
The reading scores were expressed as a percentage of mistakes made out of possible mistakes in the passage.
The children with ear infections scored an average of 15%, compared with an average of 5% for children without infections.
The follow-up study included 75 of the original 80 subjects; the children ranged in age from 10 to 11.7 years. Of this group, 64 no longer had otologic infections and had regained normal hearing. Eleven children still had middle ear disorders, including perforations of the eardrum, middle ear effusion, or infected eardrums. Hearing loss in this group ranged from 24 to 45 dB.
The control group consisted of 60 of the subjects' classmates. All controls had a negative history of middle ear infection and had normal tympanic membranes and normal hearing thresholds.
All children received a complete ear, nose, and throat examination and audiologic assessment; they also received two reading tests 4-6 months apart. Each reading test had a possibly of 220 mistakes; the expected average score was 5%.
The control group scored an average of 3.1% on the test, while the children whose ear infections had resolved scored an average of 3.4% — not a significant difference. The children whose ear problems persisted scored an average of 7% — significantly worse than the scores of either of the other groups.
The unhealed children scored better than they did in the initial study, but the second scores were still worse than what was considered an acceptable average, Dr. Golz pointed out.
“Although the children had improved their performance, this should still be regarded as functionally significant,” he said.
Teachers should be made aware of chronic ear disorders that can affect hearing and impede reading development, as well as other academic areas.