Clinic Blog / Week # 3

This week in clinic I finally was able to do some kindergarden re-screens. I thought this was a good opportunity to stress the importance of newborn hearing screenings. I love working with children and thought I would use this topic as my blog for this week. Every year 2-4 infants of every 1000 births are born with a hearing impairment. The cost of a newborn hearing screenings is ~$50. ABR and OAE are normally used and I think are definitly cost effective. I think we all understand the importance of early identification adn early intervention. The latest informantion I found was from 2005, and that said that only 37 states had implemented universal newborn hearing screenings. What are the other 13 states waiting for !??!? I have listed a few articles I found that talk about universal newborn hearing screenings.....check them out :)

Stone, K., Smith, B., Lambke, J., Clark, L., & McLellan M. (2000). Universal newborn hearing screening. The Journal of Family Practice, 49, 1012- 1016.

Stredler-Brown, A., & Arehart, K. (1998). Universal newborn hearing screening: impact on early intervention services. Volta Review, 5, 85-117.