Contralateral suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions in children with phonological disorder

Abstract

Background: Perception of acoustic details in the speech signal is im-portant for speech sound development. The medial olivocochlear path-way, a part of the auditory efferent system, plays a role in stimulus-re-lated control of the cochlea. One clinical tool to evaluate the medial olivocochlear activity, which is thought to improve speech perception in noise, is the suppression of otoacoustic emissions. Aims: This study investigated the suppression of transient evoked oto-acoustic emissions in children with phonological disorder in comparison with that in typically developing controls. Study Design: Case-control study. Methods: A total of 23 children with phonological disorder (aged 5-10 years) and 21 age-and sex-matched controls (P > 0.05) participated in the study. Participants had pure-tone thresholds ≤ 15 dB hearing loss and normal middle ear functions. Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions with and without contralateral acoustic stimulation were mea-sured. Results: Although the mean transient evoked otoacoustic emissions suppressions were lower in the group with phonological disorder than in the controls, these differences were not statistically significant (P > 0.05). No left/right ear asymmetry of transient evoked oto-acoustic emissions suppression was detected in either of the groups (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Children with phonological disorder did not show alter-ations in medial olivocochlear functioning in the medial olivocochle-ar activity as measured by the contralateral suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions.