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

Abstract

Background: 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 medialolivocochlear activity, which is thought to improve speech perceptionin noise, is the suppression of otoacoustic emissions.Aims: This study investigated the suppression of transient evoked otoacoustic 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 5-10years) and 21 age- and sex-matched controls (P > 0.05) participated inthe study. Participants had pure-tone thresholds ≤ 15 dB hearing lossand normal middle ear functions. Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions with and without contralateral acoustic stimulation were measured.Results: Although the mean transient evoked otoacoustic emissionssuppressions were lower in the group with phonological disorderthan 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).Conclusion: Children with phonological disorder did not show alterations in medial olivocochlear functioning in the medial olivocochlear activity as measured by the contralateral suppression of transientevoked otoacoustic emissions.