Introduction & Objective: Conductive hearing loss following otitis media (OM) attenuates and delays sound passing through the middle ear. This may impair central auditory functions (such as binaural hearing) and lead to central impairments that persist after the peripheral loss has resolved. This study investigated the effects of chronic otitis media (COM) on central auditory function in children.

Materials & Methods: In an analytic cross-sectional design, 64 young children were divided into three different groups and evaluated: children suffering from OM (OM group), children with a history of OM but normal hearing sensitivity on the test day (Non-OM group), and a control group. The binaural masking level difference (MLD) was performed for all participants. The data were analyzed using SPSS 16. Results: Our findings revealed that children with a history of COM had significantly smaller MLD values than normal subjects (P < 0.001). Additionally, we found a negative correlation between the MLD values and the degree of hearing loss in OM patients (P =0.01, r= -0.82). Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that COM could compromise children's central auditory function to process binaural information. Thus, conducting MLD test in COM patients is highly emphasized