For a long time both parents and doctors have believed that small children who repeatedly suffer from middle-ear diseases have an increased risk for speech and language problems to develop later on. But the recent studies suggest that such beliefs lack any touch with reality, because there was no connection found between the number and the intensity of ear infections in early childhood and language abilities later on.

''Parents can now be calm when their child has an ear infection,'' said Dr. Jack L. Paradise, pediatrics professor at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh who was the main researcher during the study, the results of which were published in the May issue of the Journal Pediatrics.

During the study that involved children until the age of 3, Dr. Paradise has researched the impact of the middle-ear fluid, which is often produced during ear infections and can develop problems with hearing in the future. Amongst the the 241 children involved in the study, a part has never had any fluid in the ears, while another part had fluid for almost half of their lives. At the age of 3, all the children were tested by their language skills.

The results of these tests have clearly shown that the time children had fluid in their ears did not affect their language perception nor speech abilities. There was a little decline in perception of spoken language in about 2 percent of children, but it was caused only by auditory issues, not mental abilities.

The further criticism of the effects of ear infections in children over their speech and language abilities was undertaken after a new extensive study performed by Dr. Paradise's study, which was presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Boston. This time the test comprised 402 infants and toddlers with extreme cases of ear infections and middle-ear fluid present for over 90 days and more. The children were divided in two groups, the first group having a surgical operation of inserting a special tube to resolve the condition immediately, while the second group had these procedures six to nine months later. The following language tests have shown that there was no difference between these two groups in their speech and language abilities, regardless of the ear infection duration.

Temporary hearing loss due to ear infection is not a big problem and is usually fixed after treating the disease (doctors often prescribe Zithromax and other antibiotic for such case. But permanent hear loss is a far more serious concern. A small percentage of children (1-2 out of 1,000) have a serious hearing problem resulted from ear infections, such as permanent sensorineural hear loss, caused by the impact of the infection over the inner ear. Such issues should be dealt with as soon as possible, because further development of the disease can case problems with language perception and speech abilities over time. In 29 states of the US hearing screening tests are mandatory for newborns. Many doctors advocate for frequent screenings in early childhood.