Abstract
Katz (1978) has suggested that mild, fluctuating conductive hearing loss due to middle-ear anomalies may account for the language and attention problems of learning-disabled children. His position was extended here to include autism. Normal, learning-disabled, and autistic children received repeated impedance measures over 5 weeks. A repeated-measures ANOVA of central tendency and variablility values led to the conclusions that (1) fluctuating, negative middle-ear pressure greater than normal characterizes both autistic and learning-disabled children, (2) the negative pressure is greater in autistic than in learning-disabled children, and (3) the condition is typically bilateral for autistic children.
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This research, project title “Language and Sensory Stimulation in Autistic Children,” was made possible by a grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health (No. MH37035-02).
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Smith, D.E.P., Miller, S.D., Stewart, M. et al. Conductive hearing loss in autistic, learning-disabled, and normal children. J Autism Dev Disord 18, 53–65 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02211818
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02211818