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PubMed · 8789756

Neonatal hearing screening.

A M Oudesluys-Murphy·H L van Straaten·R Bholasingh·G A van Zanten
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Abstract

UNLABELLED: Severe congenital hearing impairment is an important handicap affecting 0.1% of live-born infants and 1%-2% of graduates of Neonatal Intensive Care Units. The prognosis for intellectual, emotional, language and speech development in the hearing-impaired child is improved when the diagnosis is made early and intervention is begun before the age of 6 months. The usual age at diagnosis of hearing impairment is at least 18-30 months (or even later in cases of less severe hearing impairment) where there are no screening programmes. When screening is carried out using distraction methods at the age of approximately 9 months some hearing-impaired infants are missed and those discovered are at least 15-18 months before intervention begins. Neonatal screening could give hearing-impaired children the best chances for optimal care and development. Universal neonatal hearing screening is necessary, because, when neonatal hearing screening is restricted to high risk groups 30%-50% of infants with hearing loss are not discovered. The methods available for neonatal hearing screening are discussed in this paper. CONCLUSION: In our view automated measurement of auditory brainstem responses is the most valuable method for universal neonatal hearing screening.

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Audiometry, Evoked ResponseBrain StemCochlear NerveDeafnessEvoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain StemFemaleFollow-Up StudiesHumansInfantInfant, NewbornMaleNeonatal ScreeningNetherlandsOtoacoustic Emissions, SpontaneousRisk FactorsSignal Processing, Computer-AssistedJournal ArticleReview

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A M Oudesluys-Murphy, H L van Straaten, R Bholasingh, G A van Zanten. 1996. Neonatal hearing screening.. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01955176

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