Universal Newborn Hearing Screening
One of the wonderful hearing loss trends in the past few years is
Universal Newborn Hearing Screening. We have increased the fraction of
newborns screened from single digits just a few years ago to over 95%
today!
Here are some simple tests you can do at home to
help determine if your child between six weeks and three years of age is
hearing normally.
May 2004 - Looks like we've made good progress on infant
hearing screening. But we're still a long ways from testing all infants!
Here's the scoop.
December 2005 - Improving
Follow-Up After Screening Newborns
January 2006 -
Utah Families Express Frustration Over Followup After Hearing Screening
February 2006 - New
technology promises better hearing loss diagnosis.
April 2006 -
State-by-State Report on UNHS
May 2006 - No referral for many kids who fail hearing
tests
May 2006 - Screening Changes Could Help Detect Deaf
Newborns
May 2006 - Early Hearing Loss Detection Improves
Language Skills
June 2006 - ASHA Announces New Early Intervention
Campaign
May 2007 - Children With Hearing Loss Often Don't
Receive Needed Care
May 2007 - Some Children Born with "Temporary
Deafness"
May 2007 - Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI)
Process
June 2007 - Too many babies don't get proper tests for
hearing
July 2007 - Infant Screening Gains Media Spotlight
September 2007 - Update on Newborn Hearing Screening
November 2007 - Molecular Screening for Children With
Hearing Loss: Why Do It?
December 2007 - 50 State Summary of Newborn Hearing
Screening Laws
December 2007 - California to require newborn hearing
screening
January 2008 - California Law Requires Newborn Hearing
Screening
February 2008 - Spectacular Effects of Universal Hearing
Screening
March 2008 - Results of Newborn Screening for Hearing Loss
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December 2005
An article in the "ASHA
Leader" applauds our society for implementing programs that require
hearing screening for the vast majority of infants. But we haven't done
such a good job of following up on those who fail the screenings.
Maureen Thompson writes, "Approximately 95% of infants are being screened for hearing loss today, compared with only 3% just 15 years ago. But this improvement in Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) screening has yet to produce comparable positive outcomes for follow-up services. In some states, one-half of those infants who fail their hearing screening are lost to follow-up before diagnosis and intervention."
Full
story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April
2006
Universal Newborn Hearing Screening State by State -
How are we
doing on screening EVERY newborn for hearing loss? On the whole, I think
pretty well, with a national average of 92.8%. Some states are doing
very well, with New York, Illinois. Mississippi and Rhode Island at or
over 99%. Others aren't doing so well, among them Ohio (76%) and
California (78%). To see how your state is doing, please point your
browser to www.infanthearing.org/status/unhsstate.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2007
Early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) is
the process of identifying infants at birth, or shortly thereafter, who
have a hearing loss. It is the provision of appropriate intervention
services to maximize the infant’s linguistic and communicative
competence. This process may mean different things to professionals who
make up the EHDI team. The “team” refers to the infant’s family
and to those professionals who work with the infant to identify the
hearing loss and provide medical, educational, and developmental
intervention as needed. Early intervention has a different implication
to each member of the team, and may have a different meaning depending
on what that team member’s responsibility is. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2007
A third of newborns who fail their hearing screening
test don't get a follow-up evaluation, leaving them susceptible to delays
in language development that they might never overcome, a report says. The
proportion of newborns screened for hearing loss has climbed steadily in
recent years, hitting 95 percent by mid-2006, says author Karl White,
director of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management at
Utah State University. . . . About 2 percent, or 76,000 babies, don't
pass and are referred for a diagnostic assessment of their hearing.
Additional testing is needed to determine whether they are among the one
to three babies per 1,000 who actually have hearing loss, the CDC says.
Until recently, only about half of babies who failed the screening were
reported as having the additional testing, but that proportion rose to
two-thirds in the past year.
Full Story
July 2007
"I have always found it difficult to believe people
are not interested in [helping] children with hearing loss," said former
U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. "But at least the cost savings in
reducing children’s need for special education should get attention." In
1988, when Koop called for a significant increase in early hearing
detection and intervention (EHDI), fewer than 3% of newborns received
early screening. The current screening rate is 95% but should be higher,
said Koop and other panelists at a May 9 press conference at the National
Press Club in Washington, D.C., held to mark Better Hearing and Speech
Month. The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of
Hearing sponsored the event, calling attention to persistent gaps in EHDI.
State program coordinators report that 34% of babies who failed newborn
hearing screenings did not receive a confirmation of a diagnosis after
initial screening. And nearly a quarter (23%) of babies who did receive a
confirmed diagnosis still failed to be referred to early intervention
services. Full Story
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September 2007
Despite its frequency, however, newborn hearing
loss has proved to be an elusive diagnosis, primarily because few were
looking for it. In 1993, the National Conference of State Legislatures
found that fewer than 5% of all infants were screened for hearing loss
before hospital discharge. Today, thanks to awareness campaigns and
government leadership, that figure has risen to 65%, with the more
established programs screening 95% of their newborns before discharge.
Early screening identifies only that there is a problem. Methods suggested
by ASHA guidelines include measurement of otoacoustic emissions (OAE) and
auditory brainstem response (ABR). The specific diagnosis and treatment
are determined through follow-up. The problem may be temporary, such as
birthing fluid in the ear, or permanent, indicating a need for treatment
ranging from signing to hearing aids or cochlear implants. Whatever
treatment is prescribed should be determined by the time the child has
reached 6 months of age. Children who receive early intervention often
function at the level of their peers by the time they enter school,
producing better outcomes.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2007
Recent estimates suggest that screening for a
relatively small number of genetic and environmental causes for hearing
loss in newborns will identify the etiology for as many as 70% of those
who either have congenital hearing loss or are at risk for late-onset
pre-lingual hearing loss. Screening tests for the relevant causes of
deafness are already commercially available. All newborn infants would
require screening to detect pre-symptomatic infants at risk for
delayed-onset pre-linguistic hearing loss, but the tests can also be used
in infants with identified hearing losses. As is true of most genetic
tests, a positive test result would provide a reliable indication of the
cause of hearing loss in an infant who is deaf, but a negative test result
would not exclude other mutations or other genetic or environmental
causes. Full
Story
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Updated September 2007
Full Story
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December 2007
As of Jan. 1, even more children like Gregory will
get the intensive services designed to give them the best start in life.
That day, a new law takes effect requiring that all California hospitals
with delivery services test newborns' ability to hear. Currently,
California is one of the 19 states without universal hearing screening
programs. Although about three-quarters of the state's birthing hospitals
began offering a state-mandated program after its launch in 2000, the rest
were exempted by state rules linked to reimbursement. That means that each
year, more than one-quarter, or about 130,000, of the state's newborns
have been receiving either inadequate hearing screening or none at all,
said Dr. Hallie Morrow, medical consultant with the state's Newborn
Hearing Screening program.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2008
When 1-year-old Gregory Moeller heard sound for
the first time in November, he furrowed his blond eyebrows in puzzlement.
Then he made a series of babbling sounds. "He's hearing something," said
Annie Vranesic, a pediatric audiologist at the Let Them Hear Foundation in
East Palo Alto. Two weeks earlier, Gregory had received cochlear implants,
sophisticated devices enabling the deaf boy to hear the same sounds as
everyone else, albeit in a different tone. During this visit, Vranesic
turned on one of the surgically implanted devices. For the first time,
Gregory could clearly hear his parents' voices. He also turned his head
toward the wooden block Vranesic loudly smacked on her desk to test his
hearing, and soon after, he uttered a burst of babble. As of this year,
more children like Gregory will get the intensive services designed to
give them the best start in life. On Jan. 1, a law took effect requiring
that all California hospitals with delivery services test newborns'
ability to hear.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 2008
Not only has Universal Hearing Screening
identified thousands of kids with hearing loss, it has led to the
identification and treatment of some new conditions, and also to the
identification of infants with unilateral hearing loss, many of whom lose
the hearing in their other ear within a few years. Dr. Marion Downs hosted
an online seminar during the Ultimate Colorado Mid-Winter Meeting in Vail,
we were also privileged to have participation from not only Dr. Marion
Downs, and Drs. Linda Hood, Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, and Sandra Gabbard
presented on their recent efforts. The full transcript is
here.
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Effects on the Family in the
First 2 Years of Life
March 2008
Results
Mothers of infants in the false-positive group did
not report increased stress or impact. Mothers of infants with HL reported
greater financial impact, total impact, and caretaker burden compared with
mothers of infants in the control group. In multivariate analysis of the
total cohort, the presence of HL was associated with increased total
impact on the family; a neonatal intensive care unit stay was associated
with increased stress and total impact on the family; and older maternal
age and greater family resources were associated with decreased stress and
total impact on the family.
Conclusions
Although a false-positive result or a pass of the
screening for HL was not associated with increased stress or impact,
identification of HL was independently associated with greater total
impact on the family when the child was 18 to 24 months of age.
Full Story
