March 14, 2008

This week, I only saw one client. He was a 9 year old little boy being tested for auditory processing disorder. The child had previously been diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome, although no noticeable tremors or verbalizations were noted. The child had type C tymps bilaterally. Pure tone testing revealed a mild hearing loss in the left ear and a moderate loss in the right ear. It was very difficult to test this child because he would respond when no stimulus was presented and only wanted to respond if my supervisor was the one talking to him. Due to the lack of cooperation, it was determined not to continue with the APD testing.

One thing was was very interesting about this child was his speech...he did not really open his mouth to talk and when he did it was very nasal. He had frequent ear infections and also had PE tubes. I was thinking about what might have caused this...my niece had some of the same problems, which were attributed to enlarged adenoids. So, I wanted to find an article that correlated the two.

The study I examined was on the use of adenoidectomy and adenotosillectomy. They found that the overall success rate after surgery was 85.1% for the resolution of middle ear effusion. This shows that these surgeries are an effective means for the treatment of persistent otitis media with effusion.

Reference:

Abdul-Baqi, K.J., Shakhatreh, F.M., and Khader, Q.A. (2001). Use of adenoidectomy and adenotonsillectomy in children with otitis media with effusion. Ear, Nose, and Throat Journal (80), 9. 647-650.

If you would like to read this article, please use the following link: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=15&sid=d0f9c35b-c293-4b9b-9b1c-295697020330%40sessionmgr9