Newsletters

Healthy Child Fall/Winter 2004

by SUSAN J. MARGOLIN, M.D., M.P.H.
CHIEF, GENERAL PEDIATRICS

If you have a question for the pediatrician, please e-mail it to ESALAMON@SBHCS.COM or mail it to Elizabeth Salamon, Public Relations, Saint Barnabas Medical Center, 94 Old Short Hills Road, Livingston, NJ 07039

Questions should be applicable to children in general, and not focused on the specific case of an individual child.

Q. Is it safe for a child with a cold or an ear infection to fly in an airplane? Also, is it safe to fly if the child has ear tubes?

A. Flying with a cold or an ear infection is safe but may cause pain in the ears. That pain results from a difference in air pressure between the middle ear and the environment. As an airplane descends and environmental pressure changes, healthy children frequently feel pain in the ears, which may be exaggerated by a cold or an ear infection. To open the eustachian tubes in the ear––which equalizes pressure between the outside and the middle ear and reduces the pain––give the infant a bottle to drink or give an older child gum as you descend.

It is safe to fly with ear tubes. Those tubes provide an opening between the outside environment and the middle ear and assure pressure in both places is equal, thus reducing the likelihood of pain.

Q. My two-year-old son says one word sentences to ask for things, but that’s about it. His playmate, a two-year-old girl, seems far more verbal. At what point should I be concerned and, what do I do then?


A. At the age of two, many children are using two word sentences, composed of a noun and a verb. It is important to determine if speech is markedly delayed and whether this is a problem with hearing (does your child follow simple commands), a lack of verbal stimulation, an inability to form words, or an intellectual disability. Generally, if a child has acquired no spoken language by twenty months, he or she will be referred for appropriate testing. It does not sound like your child is markedly delayed, but your pediatrician is the best person to make that determination.

It has been my observation, but by no means is it scientifically proven, that girls generally start to put words together before boys do. Parents who have children of both sexes have told me their female children spoke earlier than the males.

Q. In your opinion, does it matter academically and socially if a child is the youngest in the class? Is the answer different for boys verses girls?

A. Readiness for school and academic achievement involve multiple processes that mature at different rates and may or may not be age dependent.

A child’s intelligence, motor ability and language skills, all of which affect academic and social success, can be as well developed in a child of five years one month as in a child of five years eleven months. Social adaptive behavior-play skills, emotional stability, effective competition with peers, ability to share, etc.- probably is better developed as a child ages. A parent has a different job of putting all of this together to decide if a child who will be young for the class should enter school. My friend, Ralph Cobrinik, M.D., a developmental pediatrician, informs me that young females probably adapt to early school entry more readily than young males, but he cautions parents,“when in doubt (about school readiness), keep ‘em out."

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