Speech perception abilities of children with and without histories of recurrent otitis media: an overview

Abstract

AbstractThis paper provides an overview of the effect of recurrent otitis media (ROM) on speech reception abilities in children. Presently, researchers are divided in opinion as to whether children with histories of ROM will have delayed speech and language development when compared to their normal hearing peers without a history of ROM. Some researchers have suggested that children with and without ROM perform similarly in speech reception tasks, but others hold a different view. The speech material for the speech perception tests they used included nonsense syllables, monosyllabic words, and sentences presented in conditions with and without background noise. The findings from these studies did not give a clear indication of the ROM effect on children's speech reception. Essentially, the indeterminate and conflicting findings of these studies may be the result of differences in experimental design, speech material, methodological procedures used, and the age of children given the small effect size. By u...