Middle Ear Disease Before Age 3, Treatment With Ear Tubes, and Literacy and Attentional Abilities at Ages 9 to 11

Overview

Middle-ear disease (infection and fluid) is the most common illness in young children after the common cold. Because hearing loss accompanies middle-ear disease, and because early life is a period of rapid development, concern has existed that sustained periods of middle-ear disease might cause lasting impairments of learning, speech development, language development, or behavior and social adjustment. Earlier phases of this research found that the insertion of ear tubes in children younger than 3 years of age with persistent middle-ear disease did not affect their development at 3, 4, or 6 years of age. This study examines the children's literacy, attention, and related abilities at 9 to 11 years of age.

Concern has long existed that persistent otitis media in young children, because of the associated conductive hearing loss, can result in lasting impairments of the children's development. Accordingly, myringotomy with insertion of tympanostomy tubes has often been undertaken in such children in order to promptly restore hearing to normal. However, evidence concerning developmental effects of persistent early-life otitis media has been inconclusive, and evidence that tube insertion in affected children influences their development favorably has been lacking. From a previous study we reported that among a cohort of children younger than three years of age with persistent effusion, prompt as compared with delayed insertion of tympanostomy tubes did not result in improved developmental outcomes in the children at three, four, and six years of age. The purpose of the present study was to assess developmental outcomes in the same children at nine to eleven years of age. Beginning in 1991, we enrolled 6350 healthy infants less than 62 days of age and evaluated them at least monthly until they reached three years of age. We randomly assigned 429 of the children who developed persistent middle-ear effusion before reaching that age to have tympanostomy tubes inserted either promptly or up to nine months later if effusion persisted. At three, four, and six years of age we systematically assessed the children's cognitive, language, speech, and psychosocial development. In the present study, using a standardized battery of assessments, we evaluated literacy, attentional abilities, social skills, and academic achievement in 391 of these children at nine to eleven years of age.