The relationship of otitis media in early childhood to attention dimensions during the early elementary school years.

Abstract

This study examined the impact of otitis media with effusion (OME) and associated hearing loss between 6 and 48 months of age on attention dimensions (i.e., selective/focus, sustained) during the elementary school years. A prospective cohort design in which 74 African American infants were recruited between ages 6 and 12 months. Ear examinations were done repeatedly using both otoscopy and tympanometry, and hearing was assessed using standard audiometric procedures between 6 and 48 months. Multiple measures of attention (i.e., direct assessment, behavioral observations, parent/teacher ratings) were administered from kindergarten through second grade to assess two theoretical dimensions of attention: selective/focused and sustained. The home environment was assessed annually. Results indicated that neither early childhood OME nor hearing loss showed significant correlations with any of the longitudinal or cross-sectional measures of selective/focused attention and sustained attention. In contrast, children with mothers who had fewer years of education and who lived in less responsive and supportive home environments scored higher on both parent and teacher ratings of sustained attention (i.e., hyperactivity) through the second grade of elementary school. For NEPSY Auditory Attention in second grade, a significant interaction between the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment and hearing loss was uncovered. This interaction showed that children with hearing loss from poor home environments experienced greater difficulties on the NEPSY Auditory Attention task than those with hearing loss from good home environments. These findings do not support a direct linkage of a history of OME and associated hearing loss to difficulties in selective/focused attention or sustained attention in early elementary school children. Relationships between sociodemographic variables and attention-related functions appear stronger and should be considered as mediators in any examination of the linkages between early OME and subsequent attention functions.