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

Perception of acoustic details in the speech signal is important for speech sound development. The medial olivocochlear pathway, a part of the auditory efferent system, plays a role in stimulus-related 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.

This study investigated the suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions in children with phonological disorder in comparison with that in typically developing controls.

Case-control study.

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 measured.

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 otoacoustic emissions suppression was detected in either of the groups (P > 0.05).

Children with phonological disorder did not show alterations in medial olivocochlear functioning in the medial olivocochlear activity as measured by the contralateral suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions.