(Central) auditory processing: the impact of otitis media

Introduction: Auditory processing evaluates the stages involved in detecting and interpreting sound events from the external ear to the auditory cortex in a complex central auditory nervous system. Otitis Media is one of the most common infectious diseases in early childhood. Middle ear inflammation can change the peripheral and central auditory system. Objective: To analyze the results from (Central) Auditory Processing, (C)AP, in children suffering from otitis media in the first five years of age. The specific objectives were to analyze, considering gender, the ears and age, the results obtained in tests of (C)AP in children without otitis media history and children who suffered from otitis media in childhood, to classify central auditory processing test findings regarding the hearing skills evaluated and to compare the results of (C)AP evaluates in children who underwent surgery for bilateral ventilation tubes placement belonging to student from Public and Private Schools. Methods: A total of 109 students between eight and 12 years old, males and females, were divided into three groups. The Control Group (CG) consisted of 40 students from Public School without otitis media history, the Experimental Group I (EGI) consisted of 39 students from Public School suffering from secretory otitis media in their first five years of age and undergoing a surgery for bilateral ventilation tubes placement and the Experimental Group II (EGII) consisted of 30 students from Private School suffering from secretory otitis media in their first five years of age and undergoing a surgery for bilateral ventilation tubes placement. All children underwent complete audiological evaluation and assessment of (C)AP which included the following tests: the dichotic digits, the pediatric speech intelligibility/synthetic sentence identification with ipsilateral competing message, the dichotic nonverbal, the pitch pattern sequence and the gaps-in-noise. Results: xiv Comparing the ears in the (C)AP tests, considering the groups, statistically the left ear showed significant lower performance in the dichotic digits test and the pitch pattern sequence test. The students from EGI and EGII showed lower performance whether compared to CG not only in the dichotic digits test but also in the gaps-in-noise test. Analyzing the results of (C)AP between the Experimental Groups, EGI children had significant lower results in the dichotic digits test, considering the left ear, and gaps-innoise test. The hearing skills were mostly found altered in the temporal found resolution for EGI and figure-ground for EGII. Conclusion: Children suffering from secretory otitis media in their first five years of age and undergoing a surgery for bilateral ventilation tubes placement showed lower performance in auditory abilities, and children from public school had lower responses in (C)AP test when compared with students from private school (AU)