Glue Ear

What is glue ear?

Otitis media, or glue ear, has been known about for thousands of years.

It’s a worldwide condition, affecting about 80% of children under the age of 7 years, and there is no agreement about causation. Before the advent of antibiotics, it could lead to death, and still does in countries where these are not widely available.

A build-up of fluid (the glue) in the middle ear results in a temporary hearing loss, similar to the sound of someone’s voice when you’re underwater.

It’s the most common reason for surgery in children in economically developed countries. Grommet surgery, in which small plastic ventilation tubes are inserted into the ear drum under general anaesthetic, provides temporary respite from hearing loss and infections, but the grommets tend to fall out after one to nine months.

Because glue ear is common it’s often perceived as trivial, particularly as the hearing loss is only temporary and often intermittent. However, the hearing loss can persist for anything between 4 and 12 weeks, and is more common in winter months.

There are peaks in occurrence at 2 and 5 years of age – the periods when children are learning to speak, developing social interactions and laying the foundations for academic skills.

What are the implications of glue ear for child development?

As young children develop social skills, they need functioning ears and eyes.

Research suggests that while listening to a child with whom they’re interacting, young children tend to scan the room at the same time, observing how other children behave. Children with glue ear spontaneously learn to lip read, and so they’re focusing on the mouth of the child in front of them, rather than watching others. If that child moves so that their mouth cannot be seen, the child with glue ear may not always follow the conversation, leading to misunderstandings.

Children with early onset glue ear are often described as ‘day dreamy’, as the level of concentration required to focus on what’s being said is thought to cause them to switch off. Just like children whose first language is not English, they may need additional time to process the meaning of each word, and to decipher the structure of sentences.

Children with glue ear often play with younger children, whose language structure may be simpler, or they may prefer to play alone.

Some children can become frustrated or aggressive, and their behaviour can be misinterpreted.

How does noise impact children with glue ear?

We don’t fully develop the ability to identify the direction of a sound until we’re about 15 years old.

A child who has repeated episodes of glue ear is less likely to gain the experience needed to acquire this skill, and they can be confused about where noise is coming from. This can lead to them feeling overwhelmed and distressed in a noisy environment, from which they may try to hide or escape.

This blog was originally posted on staffrm.io.

About the author

Carmel Capewell is a chartered psychologist with 20 years’ experience teaching in secondary schools in the UK. Her PhD thesis, The lived experience of glue ear: listening to the voices of mothers and young people, focuses on how young people are impacted by glue ear and what can be done to minimise this.