CHILDREN WITH CHRONIC OTITIS MEDIA: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BABBLING AND ONSET OF MEANINGFUL SPEECH Kristine M. Yont, Adele W. Miccio, and Lynne Vernon-Feagans The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA ABSTRACT Otitis media (i.e., middle ear effusion) results in a mild-to- moderate hearing loss that places children at risk for difficulties in phonetic development. This prospective longitudinal study examined prelinguistic skills of five children with chronic otitis media (COM) in relation to their onset of meaningful speech. Thirty minute language samples were collected every two weeks and phonetically transcribed (total = 51 samples). Results showed an inverse relationship between the nature of children’s babbling inventories and the age of onset of meaningful speech. Four out of the five children had prelinguistic repertoires of commonly occurring sounds and acquired meaningful speech between 12-17 months of age. The fifth child had a restricted babbling inventory and a later onset of meaningful speech (21 months). Results suggest that descriptions of young children’s babbling inventories may provide valuable diagnostic measures for the early identification of children with COM who are at risk for delays in lexical development. 1. INTRODUCTION Recently, diary and case studies have investigated the relationship between prelinguistic phonetic inventories and the development of early words in children with COM [2, 14]. In this paper, we will elaborate on previous research by examining associations between babbling repertoires and onset of meaningful speech in a group of young children diagnosed with COM between birth and 6 months of age. Section 2 contains an introduction to this area of research and the specific research questions to be addressed. Section 3 includes participant descriptions along with data collection and analysis procedures. In Section 4, results and clinical implications are provided. 2. BACKGROUND 2.1. Significance of the problem. Otitis media is one of the most common childhood diseases, affecting 79-91% of children during their first two years of life [10] and accounting for approximately $3.5 billion annually in direct and indirect costs [18]. Episodes of otitis media are accompanied by a fluctuating conductive hearing loss that occurs during critical periods of development and places children at risk for speech and language difficulties [1, 4, 6, 15, 16]. Since smaller prelinguistic speech sournd repertoires are associated with slow vocabulary development in some children [9, 12], it is hypothesized that reduced phonetic inventories will interfere with early lexical development in children with COM. Despite this potential association, few studies have examined prelinguistic sound repertoires of children with COM in relation to their onset of meaningful speech. Donahue [2] completed a diary study of a young child with COM between the ages of 9-22 months. According to Donahue, children with COM may compensate for fluctuating auditory input by using various strategies to assist in their lexical development and these differences may account for some of the individual variation in language learning within this population. In a case study, Robb et al. [14] described the phonetic and lexical development of a child with COM between 11-21 months of age. Analyses of monthly language samples revealed that this child’s vocalizations showed a lack of phonetic complexity and a reduced phonetic repertoire at the onset of meaningful speech. According to Robb et al., the child with COM had delayed sound productions that resembled speech patterns of hearing-impaired children. Since many children experience COM before they produce their first words, it is necessary to investigate relationships between prelinguistic speech sound repertoires and early vocabulary development. This line of research will not only further our understanding of the role of fluctuating auditory input on early speech and language development, but it may enable us to identify the children with COM who are most at risk for early language delays. 2.2. Research questions. The current study employed a prospective longitudinal design to investigate relationships between early babbling inventories and lexical development in five children with COM. The following questions were addressed: (1) What is the nature of babbling inventories of children with COM?, and (2) Is there a relationship between the nature of babbling inventories and the age of onset of meaningful speech in children with COM? 3. METHOD 3.1. Participants. 3.1.1. Recruitment procedures and participant descriptions. Participants in this study were part of a larger ongoing project of the effects of COM on children’s development. Participants were recruited for the current project from a University-based daycare in Central Pennsylvania. Five children (3 females, 2 males) participated in this study from a group of 8 children with COM. Children were selected if they had reached meaningful speech, defined as the production of at least 10 identifiable word types [17] during a 30-minute language sample. Each participant was monolingual with English as their native language. With the exception of middle ear disease, medical history was insignificant for factors that had the potential to interfere with speech or language development, such as sensorineural hearing loss and prematurity. Children were page 2181 ICPhS99 San Francisco