Failure on the Newborn Infant Hearing Screen: What’s Next?

Abstract

Program Description: Hearing screening for newborn infants has become commonplace. The Joint Commission on Infant Hearing (JCIH) in its position statements has created goals and guidelines for managing these children in a timely manner. The early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) process is designed to maximize linguistic and communicative competence and literacy development for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Without appropriate opportunities to learn language, these children will fall behind their hearing peers in language, cognition, and social-emotional development. Such delays may result in lower educational and employment levels in adulthood. Early diagnosis and treatment of hearing impaired infants in the first year of life has been shown to avoid the detrimental effects of delayed action. Despite this fact and a high screening rate among programs (>95%), almost half of those infants who do not pass the initial screening fail to have appropriate and timely follow-up including audiological and medical assessment by an individual with training in pediatric hearing disorders. Rather, families are often times reassured or misinformed by well-intentioned professionals about this process and the consequences of delayed intervention. This miniseminar will provide the fundamental framework for obtaining timely and accurate audiological and medical diagnosis and hearing instrument fitting (hearing aids or cochlear implants). Recognized professionals in the field will cover topics such as electrophysiological hearing testing, practical application and results of amplification, medical assessment including radiological and genetic evaluation, and the criteria and results of cochlear implantation. Issues relevant to delayed diagnosis and intervention such as organizational structure, awareness, funding, and necessary political activity will be addressed.

Educational Objectives: 1) Understand the significance of a failure result on the newborn infant hearing screening examination. 2) Learn the fundamental, multidisciplinary evaluation, and management paradigm for infants that fail the newborn screen. 3) Understand the cause and consequences of inappropriate or delayed intervention in hearing impaired children.