MESHGuides

Anderson, K. & Smaldino, J. (2000) ’Children’s Home Inventory for Listening Difficulties’  Designed by Oticon 2007 [Online] [Accessed: 9 Sept. 23]

Bupa (2013)  How Glue Ear develops [Online animation]  [Accessed: 9 Sept. 23]

Listening with Glue Ear will result in speech sounding quieter and muffled.  The NDCS (2017: 7) compares it to ‘listening to the world with your fingers stuck in your ears’.   Listening will be hard work and tiring.  A child’s auditory neurological network is not fully developed so they are unable to make sense of misheard words in the same way as adults (Cole and Flexer 2011).   They do not have the knowledge of language to understand unclear speech.  Listening in noisy environments will be even more challenging.

Glue Ear Together works with families, education and health, to provide clear, up-to-date information that promotes positive outcomes for children with glue ear.

An otovent consists of a nose piece and a balloon and is considered suitable for use for children over 3 years of age.  The nose piece is placed against the nostril whilst the other nostril is held closed and the balloon is inflated by blowing with the nose.  This procedure helps to open the eustachian tube, equalise the air pressure and allow the fluid in the middle ear to drain down the back of the throat.  It is recommended to be used 3 times a day with 1 inflation through each nostril on each occasion.

A study by Klatte et al, (2010) showed that background noise had a greater impact on children’s speech perception and listening comprehension than adults, with high levels of classroom noise adversely impacting attainment.

Children are not able to make sense of words they have missed, as their auditory neurological network is not fully developed (Cole and Flexer 2011).

Glue Ear can go unnoticed and unidentified in a young child.  It is not normally associated with pain, but children may experience a fullness or popping in their ears.

Glue Ear often occurs at a time when a young child is learning to communicate, may have a limited attention span and likes to do things their own way.  Picking up on symptoms related to Glue Ear at this point in a child’s development can be difficult.

Symptoms generally fall into the following four areas:

Acute otitis media and Glue Ear ‘are together responsible for sizeable costs of about £2-300 million annually, and reflect the magnitude of the problem to the NHS.’ (Williamson et al. 2006).

‘It is thought that between 50% and 85% of children experience at least one episode of AOM by 3 years of age with the peak incidence being between 6 and 15 months.’ (Qureishi et al 2014, citing Klein 1989 )

In some cases a child with Glue Ear may benefit from a low-powered hearing aid. Hearing aids can be worn for many months while waiting for Glue Ear to clear itself and may be preferable to surgical treatment.

Studies have shown that there is a ‘sensitive period for the development of central auditory pathways ... within the first 3.5 years of life when the central pathways show maximal plasticity’ (Sharma et al., 2009).

A child with Glue Ear may find it difficult to listen to speech and straining to listen may result in reduced attention.

Listening is a process that consists of four stages: detection, discrimination, identification and comprehension (Erber, 1982).

Speech tests can be used to see if a child is accessing the sounds of speech.

The McCormick Toy Test

The McCormick Toy Test was developed in 1977 by Professor Barry McCormick and consists of 7 pairs of words with the same vowel sound and different consonants.  It is important to know if the child understands the vocabulary, so any unknown words are not used.