Approximately 33 babies are born every day with a significant hearing loss in the United States. Nearly 50% of newborns with hearing loss are not diagnosed until at least the second year of life. Hearing loss among newborns is 20 times more prevalent than phenlyketonuria (PKU), a condition for which all newborns are screened for. The average age that children with hearing loss are initially diagnosed ranges from 12 to 25 months. Studies have shown that when hearing loss is detected later, an important time frame for developing speech and language skills has passed. As a result, speech and language development is delayed and academic and social skills may be adversely affected. Research has confirmed that treatment has the best results when infant hearing loss is identified and intervention is begins before the child reaches six months of age. Less than 20% of the children born in the U.S. are born in hospitals that offer universal newborn hearing screening programs.The National Institute of Health, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Audiology, the Joint committee on Infant Hearing, and the Healthy People 2000 Report recommend that children with congenital hearing loss be identified before six months of age. A unilateral hearing loss that remains undetected will have negative consequences. Even children with a hearing loss in one ear are ten times as likely to be held back by a grade as compared to children with normal hearing in both ears. Infants identified with hearing loss may be fit with hearing amplification as young as four weeks of age. Appropriate and comprehensive early intervention helps these children develop with better language, cognitive, and social skills.Most children with hearing loss can hear some speech, however, the speech tends to lack clarity since the hearing loss occurs in the higher frequencies that contain most of the consonant and vowel sounds necessary for understanding speech. However, since the child is able to respond to the lower frequencies, he or she will usually be identified later on. As a result of late identification, speech and language skills will have significant delays. Early identification is necessary before sixth months of age in order to catch that specific time frame in which optimal speech and language development occurs. Formal audiological evaluations are needed to rule out less severe but equally disabling degrees of hearing loss.
Friday, October 31, 2008
newborn screening
Approximately 33 babies are born every day with a significant hearing loss in the United States. Nearly 50% of newborns with hearing loss are not diagnosed until at least the second year of life. Hearing loss among newborns is 20 times more prevalent than phenlyketonuria (PKU), a condition for which all newborns are screened for. The average age that children with hearing loss are initially diagnosed ranges from 12 to 25 months. Studies have shown that when hearing loss is detected later, an important time frame for developing speech and language skills has passed. As a result, speech and language development is delayed and academic and social skills may be adversely affected. Research has confirmed that treatment has the best results when infant hearing loss is identified and intervention is begins before the child reaches six months of age. Less than 20% of the children born in the U.S. are born in hospitals that offer universal newborn hearing screening programs.The National Institute of Health, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Audiology, the Joint committee on Infant Hearing, and the Healthy People 2000 Report recommend that children with congenital hearing loss be identified before six months of age. A unilateral hearing loss that remains undetected will have negative consequences. Even children with a hearing loss in one ear are ten times as likely to be held back by a grade as compared to children with normal hearing in both ears. Infants identified with hearing loss may be fit with hearing amplification as young as four weeks of age. Appropriate and comprehensive early intervention helps these children develop with better language, cognitive, and social skills.Most children with hearing loss can hear some speech, however, the speech tends to lack clarity since the hearing loss occurs in the higher frequencies that contain most of the consonant and vowel sounds necessary for understanding speech. However, since the child is able to respond to the lower frequencies, he or she will usually be identified later on. As a result of late identification, speech and language skills will have significant delays. Early identification is necessary before sixth months of age in order to catch that specific time frame in which optimal speech and language development occurs. Formal audiological evaluations are needed to rule out less severe but equally disabling degrees of hearing loss.
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Hearing screening & Vision screening is absolutely painless.It is carried out in order to check the strength & weaknesses of your ears and eyes respectively.
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