Brief tone discrimination by children with histories of early otitis media.

Twelve children, ranging in age from 8.9 to 12.4 years, with histories of severe otitis media with effusion (OME) before age 3, were compared to age-matched cohorts in their ability to discriminate the frequency of tone pulses of 20-, 50-, and 200-msec duration. An adaptive procedure was used in combination with a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm to measure difference limens (DLs) for digitally generated 1000-Hz tones. The OME group exhibited larger DLs than the non-OME group at all three stimulus durations. These results provide tentative evidence of possible long-term effects of early OME on brief tone frequency discrimination.