Young children need better follow-up hearing screens
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/05039/454115.stm

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

By Virginia Linn, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the six-county Pittsburgh region, about 100 children are born annually with some form or hearing loss, including 25 with profound loss.

Many of these children's hearing problems are being identified shortly after birth, thanks to mandatory newborn hearing tests that Pennsylvania lawmakers enacted in 2001.

But while most children get that initial screening, too many are not getting the follow-ups that would lead to early intervention, said Dr. Robert Cicco, a West Penn neonatologist who is president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"There have been a lot of kids falling through the cracks," said Cicco, who is involved on the state's Infant Hearing Screening Advisory Committee. "The focus has been too much on screening and not what happens if the kid fails the screening."

Babies are screened just after birth and if a problem is detected, again 30 days later. If a baby fails the screening process, a diagnosis should be made within the first three months and that child then should be in some intervention program within six months.

Sometimes children won't pass the test because fluid is suspected of being in the ear, and doctors urge parents to wait until the fluid disappears, losing valuable time in language development if indeed a hearing problem exists. Sometimes a child fails the test and then the family changes doctors and the child is lost in the system. Sometimes there are false-negatives, again delaying diagnosis and early intervention.

In Pennsylvania, 150 children were diagnosed with hearing loss and placed in intervention programs in 2003. "If you look at the overall incidence, we probably should be close to 400. Clearly we were still missing some," he said.

Cicco, other doctors and the state Department of Health have launched an education campaign to get the word out about the importance of getting these tests done accurately and early. The committee also is working to create a Web-based tracking system for infants who have failed their hearing screenings.

"When children get that help earlier, you do in fact not only improve their lives," Cicco said. "But you also improve their speech and language capabilities."

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