Persistency of an effect: otitis media during the first year of life with nine years follow-up

A cohort of lower socioeconomic–economic children who experienced multi and prolonged episodes of otitis media during their first year of life and followed for 9 years showed that all of the children had poorer performance in linguistic tasks than did the control group. Differences were found in all of the OM+ children at all ages. The effect of the otitis media and its accompanying hearing loss was noted in eight measures throughout the 9-year period of observation.