title: Long-term influence of recurrent acute otitis media on neural involuntary attention switching in 2-year-old children.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A large group of young children are exposed to repetitive middle ear infections but the effects of the fluctuating hearing sensations on immature central auditory system are not fully understood. The present study investigated the consequences of early childhood recurrent acute otitis media (RAOM) on involuntary auditory attention switching.
  
  
  METHODS
  By utilizing auditory event-related potentials, neural mechanisms of involuntary attention were studied in 22-26 month-old children (N = 18) who had had an early childhood RAOM and healthy controls (N = 19). The earlier and later phase of the P3a (eP3a and lP3a) and the late negativity (LN) were measured for embedded novel sounds in the passive multi-feature paradigm with repeating standard and deviant syllable stimuli. The children with RAOM had tympanostomy tubes inserted and all the children in both study groups had to have clinically healthy ears at the time of the measurement assessed by an otolaryngologist.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed that lP3a amplitude diminished less from frontal to central and parietal areas in the children with RAOM than the controls. This might reflect an immature control of involuntary attention switch. Furthermore, the LN latency was longer in children with RAOM than in the controls, which suggests delayed reorientation of attention in RAOM.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The lP3a and LN responses are affected in toddlers who have had a RAOM even when their ears are healthy. This suggests detrimental long-term effects of RAOM on the neural mechanisms of involuntary attention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Language Pathology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Publicum, University of Turku, 20014, Turku, Finland. sini.haapala@utu.fi.|Clinical Neurophysiology, Oulu University Hospital, PO Box 21, 90029, Oulu, Finland. sini.haapala@utu.fi.
authors.forename: Sini
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Haapala
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neurophysiology, Oulu University Hospital, PO Box 21, 90029, Oulu, Finland. elina.niemitalo-haapola@oulu.fi.|Child Language Research Center and Logopedics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, PO Box 1000, 90014, Oulu, Finland. elina.niemitalo-haapola@oulu.fi.
authors.forename: Elina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Niemitalo-Haapola
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Oulu University Hospital, PO Box 21, 90029, Oulu, Finland. araappa@gmail.com.|Department of Otolaryngology, University of Oulu, PO Box 5000, 90014, Oulu, Finland. araappa@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Antti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Raappana
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, University of Oulu, PO Box 5000, 90014, Oulu, Finland. tiia.kujala@oulu.fi.
authors.forename: Tiia
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kujala
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neurophysiology, Oulu University Hospital, PO Box 21, 90029, Oulu, Finland. vlkalervo.suominen@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Kalervo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Suominen
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Language Pathology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Publicum, University of Turku, 20014, Turku, Finland. eira.jansson-verkasalo@utu.fi.
authors.forename: Eira
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jansson-Verkasalo
authors.affiliation: Cicero Learning, University of Helsinki, PO Box 9, 00014, Helsinki, Finland. teija.m.kujala@helsinki.fi.|Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 9, 00014, Helsinki, Finland. teija.m.kujala@helsinki.fi.
authors.forename: Teija
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kujala
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010033:Otitis Media / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012008:Recurrence