Speech perception and verbal memory in children with end without historiesof otitis media

Two groups of children, with (n = 7) and without (n = 7) First-year histori es of otitis media, were participants in a longitudinal study that included periodic audiological and medical evaluations during the first year of lif e. At age 9, these children were tested on a series of speech perception an d verbal short-term memory tasks using stimuli of varying degrees of phonet ic contrast. Although the otitis-positive group performed less accurately t han the otitis-free group, the pattern of errors wets the same for the two groups. The performances of the children with and without positive historie s of otitis media were negatively affected by an increase in phonetic simil arity of the stimulus items. The two groups, however, did not differ on ide ntification or on temporal-order recall when the speech sounds were differe ntiated by multiple features. These findings provide evidence of subtle, lo ng-term effects of early episodes of otitis media on phonological represent ations and on working memory.