Otitis media and language performance in a cohort of Apache Indian children
R. S. Fischler, N. W. Todd and C. M. Feldman
Language performance was evaluated in 167 healthy Apache Indian children
aged 6 to 8 years, who had contrasting histories of otitis media and who
had been followed since birth. All children received pneumatic otoscopy,
tympanometry, pure tone audiometry, and a battery of language measures.
Groups were similar with respect to age, sex, school experience, family
income, housing, primary language spoken, and nonverbal intelligence. No
statistically or clinically significant differences in language performance
were observed between groups of children with frequent episodes of otitis
media and those from the same cohort with infrequent otitis. While frequent
otitis media was associated with abnormalities on tympanometry and
otoscopy, bilateral hearing loss (greater than 25 dB) was observed in only
1% of the children.
