PACE Program

Now Offering
Hope for Struggling Students -
WHEN TUTORING DOESN'T WORK!
For more information see our PACE Overview, or
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Social Skills Classes

The Swain Center is now offering social skills classes. These programs are in high demand, so call today to schedule your screening! Call us at (707) 575-1468 for more info.

LSVT® Loud

Lee Silverman Voice Training - A scientifically documented efficacious program for treating voice and speech disorders in patients with Parkinson's Disease and other neurological disorders.
www.lsvt.org

Homework Club

The Swain Center is now offering Homework Club and Math Clinic. Call us at (707) 575-1468 for more info.

Tomatis Outreaches

Sacramento
Outreach
Started May 18, 2009*

Las Vegas
Outreach
Starts July 27, 2009*
Now enrolling!

*Call Lindsay Swain 1-800-830-4061 for more information

Orange County
Outreach
Starts June 22, 2009
Now enrolling!
(714) 955-1299

Future locations:
Thousand Oaks
Fort Bragg
Marin
Chico

Upcoming Events

Monthly Autism Support Group

[view entire calendar]

Saturday
July 4th, 2009

topic of the month

Chronic Ear Infections and the Effects on Listening and Learning

According to investigators with the Dallas Cooperative Project on Early Hearing and Language Development between 75% and 95% of all preschool-aged children are affected by Otitis Media with the peak of first occurrence appearing between six and 18 months of age and lasting until approximately three years of age. "Otitis media" is the medical term for a middle ear infection. It involves the inflammation and/or buildup of fluid in the area behind the eardrum, which is the middle ear. This space is typically an air filled space that is arid and dry. There are times when the middle ear can contain fluid that never becomes inflamed. In these cases there will be no symptoms. Sometimes, weeks or months may pass before a parent realizes that the child has an infection or fluid build-up. However, the effects on hearing and listening will be the same as if the fluid was inflamed.

"Ninety percent of hyperactive children studied gave a history of three or more ear infections", according to a study published in the May 1997 issue of clinical Pediatrics. In a 1987 article in Parents Pediatric Report, researchers stated, "Ear infections and their effect on language development are prominent topics in pediatric literature. Hyperactivity is another item of great interest…On the surface they seem to be two unrelated entities. But could there be a connection between these two conditions? Very much so, says a study from the University of Colorado in Denver, and Yeshiva University in New York."

Otitis Media is one of the most common childhood diseases occurring when children are listening and learning to talk. When the middle ear is filled with fluid, the two muscles do not contract well. As a result, the three tiny bones in the middle ear that carry the sound vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear cannot transmit the sounds as well as they should. This results in a temporary mild to moderate hearing loss. According to Dr. Vincent Carrasco, M.D., fluid can remain trapped in the middle ear for 3-6 weeks before it is cleared, even after a week of antibiotics. To put this into perspective, a child that begins having ear infections soon after birth and has a total of four infections during the first year of life could spend potentially 12-24 weeks (three to six months) with some degree of hearing loss.

This is why, when children have an ear infection, the sounds they hear are not clear and precise. Plug your ears with your fingers, and listen to someone talk. This is how voices sound to children with fluid in the middle ear. Speech sounds that are received by the middle ear have different frequencies or pitches. For example, vowel sounds are low frequency sounds and many consonant sounds are high frequency. When the middle ear is filled with fluid the low frequency sounds can move through the fluid but the high frequency sounds cannot because there is not enough energy to transmit these sounds. As a result, a child may not be hearing sounds of s, f, th, sh and others. This can result in problems with speech, language, and learning.

Otitis Media has an effect on listening, and speech and language development because fluctuating hearing loss during the early years of life presents children with reduced and inconsistent speech signals on which to base language learning. According to Jack Katz (1998) "Conductive hearing loss (as a result of chronic ear infections) in young children, even mild to fluctuation: 1) can interfere with the acquisition of good auditory perceptual skills, 2) can adversely influence language development, 3) can increase the likelihood of having a significant learning disability, and 4) in adults and children can lead to aberrant results on auditory tests that might be mistaken for signs of gross retrocochlear or brain lesions." He concludes that the auditory function deprivation resulting from the "earplug" effect of conductive hearing loss may cause continuing abnormal auditory function even after the infection or fluid has subsided.

Otitis Media causes continuous shifts in auditory input. Children who experience continuous shifts in auditory input may be unable to organize auditory information effectively. When this happens a child may not demonstrate effective language learning because of miscategorization from fluctuating hearing loss. Compounding this issue, because the middle ear does not function effectively, problems with sound discrimination can result. That is, children cannot distinguish the difference between similar sounding words. For example, they may hear "the dog's trap is on the floor" when what was said was "your jog strap is caught in the door". Problems with discrimination can delay processing as the child tries to "figure out" what is being said. This in turn can cause problems with immediate auditory memory skills.

Chronic Otitis Media has significant effects on the auditory processing skills. The problems with discrimination can present itself as a speech problem in learning phonics. Both reading and spelling acquisition and mastery can be affected. It also affects the way that they listen. We frequently accuse our children of having "selective listening", that is, that they choose to listen to things other than their parents. Sometimes that is the case. However, because of the amount of energy the process of listening, understanding and storing and retrieving requires, the child can do only so much listening before he /she tunes out because of the overload and fatigue. These children tend to be "working overtime" to listen and learn in a classroom situation.

If a child has a history of chronic ear infections they may be "at risk" for listening and learning problems. Children can have "normal" speech and language development but still have difficulty with listening and learning. Children with auditory processing problems as a result of chronic ear infections will not "out grow" these problems and will require therapeutic intervention to correct the underlying weaknesses with the auditory processing system that are causing learning problems.

Auditory Development Intervention is clinically proven to improve skills of auditory perception and discrimination, immediate auditory memory, and reduce processing delays and overload. ADI treats the causes of the symptoms associated with auditory disorder. In order to reduce or eliminate the symptoms the causal factors must be corrected.