The efficacy of early identification and intervention for children with hearing impairment

From these findings, the inevitable conclusion is that identification of hearing loss by 6 months of age, followed by appropriate intervention, is the most effective strategy for the normal development of language in infants and toddlers with hearing loss. Identification of hearing loss by 6 months can only be accomplished through universal newborn hearing screening. Some questions that arise as a result of these studies include: What can one conclude from the finding that the language skills of children with mild hearing losses are no better than those with greater losses? If the finding holds up, it indicates a great need for investigations into biobehavior theories of language acquisition and into the part played by the prenatal 4 months of hearing. And it also shows a need for answering the question, When does a hearing loss begin?, because it certainly seems that all hearing losses are similar in their outcomes. Can the findings from these studies be used to benefit normally hearing children who are at risk for language delays as a result of limited language environments? Such children suffer from auditory deprivation just as surely as those with hearing losses. If the language skills of the latter children can be brought to normal range by early intervention, the same strategy may help high-risk populations. The efficacy of early intervention is just as valid for these children as it is for the children with hearing impairment. Now that the benefits of early identification of children with congenital hearing loss have been demonstrated, these benefits should be extended to all children who are at risk for language delays, with appropriate interventions applied immediately.     

Post-natal hearing loss in universal neonatal hearing screening communities: current limitations and future directions

Abstract:   Universal hearing screening has dramatically improved outcomes for babies born with detectable hearing abnormalities; yet there are some infants who develop significant hearing problems after passing a neonatal screen. There is much conjecture as to the number and the characteristics of infants with post-natal hearing losses; yet evidence suggests that many children may be affected, and that a large proportion have no discoverable cause. Currently, screening programmes use lists of risk factors to enrol babies into surveillance programmes. This practice is problematic because audiological follow-ups are expensive and under-utilised, and parental disclosure is often inaccurate. The large databases from universal neonatal programmes could inform the development of effective, evidence-based practice and policy for the detection and intervention of children who develop post-natal hearing losses.     

Parental suspicion and identification of hearing impairment.

The contribution of parental suspicion in the original identification of a 16 year cohort of 171 children with varying degrees of hearing impairment who were screened and identified in childhood was studied. Only a quarter of the children with permanent hearing loss were identified as a result of parental concern. The presence of parental suspicion preceding the audiological diagnosis was also measured. Of the children with severe or profound deafness, the parents only suspected the presence of hearing loss in 44%. Parental suspicion was even lower for those with a mild or moderate permanent hearing loss, and for those with an otherwise symptomless conductive hearing loss caused by otitis media with effusion. Some parents did identify hearing impairment in their children, and parental suspicion should never be professionally disregarded. Most parents, however, experienced initial difficulty in recognising their children''s hearing loss, even when the children were comparatively old. The study confirms the need to continue to identify deafness early by both parental vigilance and sensitive hearing screening programmes.     

Cochlear implantation for progressive hearing loss.

The concept of neural plasticity and the early natural abilities of hearing children to acquire speech and language without instruction have led many authorities to advocate cochlear implantation before the age of 5 years in congenital deafness. Older children therefore become lower priority for scarce public funds because they are perceived to have passed the "window of opportunity" to learn speech, even if hearing is restored, and continue to rely on sign language. This paper shows that a subgroup of congenitally deaf children exists, who, having made good progress with conventional hearing aids, suffer a sudden or progressive hearing deterioration which arrests the speech development. Sixty children have been implanted in the Cambridge Programme, half for meningitis or other acquired losses and half for congenital prelingual deafness. Six of this latter group were congenital but progressive; their progress, deterioration, and improvement after implantation are summarised.     

Cochlear implantation for progressive hearing loss

The concept of neural plasticity and the early natural abilities of hearing children to acquire speech and language without instruction have led many authorities to advocate cochlear implantation before the age of 5 years in congenital deafness. Older children therefore become lower priority for scarce public funds because they are perceived to have passed the "window of opportunity" to learn speech, even if hearing is restored, and continue to rely on sign language. This paper shows that a subgroup of congenitally deaf children exists, who, having made good progress with conventional hearing aids, suffer a sudden or progressive hearing deterioration which arrests the speech development. Sixty children have been implanted in the Cambridge Programme, half for meningitis or other acquired losses and half for congenital prelingual deafness. Six of this latter group were congenital but progressive; their progress, deterioration, and improvement after implantation are summarised.     

Communication between Parents and Deaf Children: Implications for Social-emotional Development

Parent-child communication plays a central role in social growth, as it does in other domains of development. Over 90 % of deaf children, however, have hearing parents who frequently do not have a fully effective means of communicating with them. This paper examines the role of effective parent-child communication in the social and emotional development of deaf children. Evidence concerning relations between early communication and social-emotional development of deaf children is reviewed, and superficial differences in the ways that parents interact with deaf versus hearing children are distinguished from differences that may have more significant and enduring effects. Hearing parents and their deaf children are found to develop alternative, often nonverbal, interaction strategies. Of primary interest is the extent to which those strategies have impact comparable to the strategies of hearing parents with hearing children or deaf parents with deaf children.     

The relationship of otitis media in early childhood to attention dimensions during the early elementary school years

This study examined the impact of otitis media with effusion (OME) and associated hearing loss between 6 and 48 months of age on attention dimensions (i.e., selective/focus, sustained) during the elementary school years. A prospective cohort design in which 74 African American infants were recruited between ages 6 and 12 months. Ear examinations were done repeatedly using both otoscopy and tympanometry, and hearing was assessed using standard audiometric procedures between 6 and 48 months. Multiple measures of attention (i.e., direct assessment, behavioral observations, parent/teacher ratings) were administered from kindergarten through second grade to assess two theoretical dimensions of attention: selective/focused and sustained. The home environment was assessed annually. Results indicated that neither early childhood OME nor hearing loss showed significant correlations with any of the longitudinal or cross-sectional measures of selective/focused attention and sustained attention. In contrast, children with mothers who had fewer years of education and who lived in less responsive and supportive home environments scored higher on both parent and teacher ratings of sustained attention (i.e., hyperactivity) through the second grade of elementary school. For NEPSY Auditory Attention in second grade, a significant interaction between the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment and hearing loss was uncovered. This interaction showed that children with hearing loss from poor home environments experienced greater difficulties on the NEPSY Auditory Attention task than those with hearing loss from good home environments. These findings do not support a direct linkage of a history of OME and associated hearing loss to difficulties in selective/focused attention or sustained attention in early elementary school children. Relationships between sociodemographic variables and attention-related functions appear stronger and should be considered as mediators in any examination of the linkages between early OME and subsequent attention functions.     

Preventive care and overall use of services. Are they related?

The relationship between the use of services of children constantly enrolled in a prepaid group practice medical plan for six years and the completeness of their preventive care were examined. Children who were consistently low users of services were more likely to be lacking one or more components of standard preventive care, particularly general health assessments in older children and vision, hearing, and tuberculosis screening in younger children. Teenage children who were low users were at some risk of not receiving their tetanus-diphtheria immunization on time. The relationship between low use of services and incomplete preventive care persisted after controlling for the severity of morbidity, although children with more severe morbidity were somewhat less likely to be missing preventive care. Health facilities and practitioners should pay special attention to assessing the need for standard preventive care in children who are infrequent users of services.     

Neonatal hearing screening: to do or not to do

Over the last two decades there has been a great deal of discussion concerning hearing loss in infants and the most appropriate diagnostic strategies to identify these children so that early intervention can be provided. This article reviews the developments that have transpired to allow universal newborn hearing screening programs to become the standard of care throughout most of North America. The article also examines ongoing controversies in universal newborn hearing screening and future needs to enhance universal newborn hearing screening, with the ultimate goal being early intervention for children identified with hearing loss through these programs.     

Hearing screening at well-child visits

OBJECTIVES: To determine hearing screening failure rates in primary care settings and to examine the referral practices in response to an abnormal screening test. METHODS: We enrolled a convenience sample of children between 3 and 19 years of age who were undergoing hearing screening during a well-child visit. A failure was defined as missing any frequency (1000, 2000, or 4000 Hz) in either ear at 20-dB hearing level. The pediatrician made the decision of whether to refer the patient for further evaluation. RESULTS: Three academic and 5 private practices enrolled 1061 children. Sixty-seven children (7%) were unable to complete the screening. Of the 948 children who completed the screen, a total of 852 children (90%) passed the screening and 96 children (10%) failed. After multivariable logistic regression analysis, the only statistically significant factor predictive of a failed screen was developmental delay (P = .02). Of the 96 children who failed the hearing screening, 57 (59%) had no further evaluation, 12 (13%) were rechecked, and 27 (28%) were referred. Similar percentages were seen with children who could not be screened. CONCLUSIONS: Although 10% of the children failed hearing screening, pediatricians neither rechecked nor referred more than half of these children. Screening that does not result in action for those failing the screening wastes resources and fails to properly identify hearing impairment in children.     

Ototoxicity of cisplatin in children with malignant diseases

Ten out of 20 children with malignant diseases who received cisplatin in combination with other drugs developed hearing impairment primarily at the higher and rarely also at the lower frequencies. The CDDP-ototoxicity was found to be dose-related and irreversible. Audiometric abnormalities were symmetrical and bilateral. Two patients had symptomatic hearing impairment. Ototoxicity was more severe with higher individual and higher cumulative doses. CNS-irradiation increases the ototoxic effect of CDDP. Audiometric testing at the beginning of chemotherapy and during chemotherapy is important to find out preexisting disturbances of hearing function and to recognize early developing hearing loss.     

Early versus delayed insertion of tympanostomy tubes for persistent otitis media: developmental outcomes at the age of three years in relation to prerandomization illness patterns and hearing levels

BACKGROUND: Whether prompt insertion of tympanostomy tubes in children with persistent early life otitis media prevents or minimizes subsequent developmental impairment has been the subject of conflicting opinions and differing approaches to management. METHODS: We randomly assigned 429 children with persistent middle ear effusion (MEE) before the age of 3 years to have tympanostomy tubes inserted either as soon as possible or up to 9 months later if MEE persisted. In 402 of these children, we found no significant differences at age 3 years between the 2 treatment groups in mean scores on any measure of speech, language and cognition and in 401 of the children no significant differences in measures of psychosocial development. We then examined outcomes within subgroups of children who might have been the most severely affected, namely those who had been randomized on the basis of bilateral, continuous MEE rather than unilateral and/or discontinuous MEE and those who had the greatest degrees of hearing loss. RESULTS: In none of the subgroups we considered were scores on any outcome measure significantly more favorable in children in the early treatment group than in children in the late treatment group. CONCLUSIONS: In otherwise normal children who have MEE, during the first 3 years of life within the durations we studied, prompt insertion of tympanostomy tubes does not measurably improve developmental outcomes at age 3 years, irrespective of whether MEE has been continuous or discontinuous and unilateral or bilateral and whether or not MEE has been accompanied by mild to moderate hearing loss.     

Hearing,speech, and language in survivors of severe perinatal asphyxia.

Hearing, speech, and language were studied in 26 children who survived severe perinatal asphyxia. The results of hearing tests showed that most children had a favourable outcome. Only 1 child had sensorineural deafness. Hearing loss in 6 others was due to middle-ear disease which resolved after treatment, and on retesting was found to be normal. The study also showed that neither gentamicin treatment nor incubator noise seemed to affect hearing. The results of speech and language assessment were less encouraging and about one-third of the children without serious mental or physical handicap had deficits in speech and language. It is suggested that the quality of life in such children could be improved if these deficits were detected early and adequately treated.     

Early hearing detection and intervention in children with prelingual deafness, effects on language development

AIM: The purpose of this study was to assess, the cognitive and receptive language abilities in children with prelingual hearing impairment, in relation to the age of enrollment in the intervention program and examine the related variables. METHODS: Seventy children with congenital prelingual deafness were divided into 2 groups based on their age at the start of the intervention program: 17 children enrolled between 0-12 months of age, 53 children enrolled after the age of 12 months. The age of intervention is defined as the identification and confirmation of hearing loss, adaptation of hearing aids, and enrollment in the program of special education at the Orthophonological Institute of Rome. Assessments were carried out at 5 years of age. The receptive language abilities were measured using the Peabody picture vocabulary test (PPVT), while the cognitive abilities used the Raven standard progressive matrices test. The material was administered by staff skilled in assessing children with hearing loss. The assessment of language score tests (PPVT and Raven progressive matrix test) of samples of children with hearing loss was compared with normal standardized scores of hearing peers at 5 years of age. Mean group differences were compared using t-tests. The results were considered statistically significant for a P-value less than or equal to 0.05. RESULTS: A progressive decline in the mean PPVT score with increasing ages of enrollment was present. The mean receptive language score of the children enrolled within the first 12 months was significantly better (P<0.001) compared to those over 13 months. The nonverbal IQ, determined by Raven's standard progressive matrices, showed no statistically significant differences in IQ scores (P = 0.083) between children with early and late age of enrollment. Our data revealed that language abilities are significantly affected by the degree of hearing loss (P<0.001 Children with very severe hearing loss, find it more difficult to achieve adequate language abilities than children with moderate and severe hearing. CONCLUSION: According to previous studies on the matter, our data suggest that identification of hearing loss at early age associated with early hearing aid fitting, and enrollment in early intervention within the first 12 months of age, may help to obtain good results in the receptive language skills performance. The early identification of prelingual hearing loss at birth through the neonatal screening must therefore be, , considered the primary step for accessing a quality intervention.     

Improving Oral Imitation in Preschool Children With and Without Hearing Impairment

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of group oral motor games on the acquisition of oral imitation skills and to screen for any transfer effects in speech articulation. Preschool children with and without hearing impairments were taught oral motor games for a period of nine weeks. Students without disability who practiced the games demonstrated a significant improvement in Oral Praxis Test raw scores. Improvement was not significant for the control group of students without disability who did not practice the games. Results for the children with hearing impairments were mixed. No correlation was found between Oral Praxis scores and the presence or absence of articulation errors. This lack of correlation between performance on a test of isolated mouth movements and speech concurred with motor learning research findings that transfer of motor learning from component skills to complex tasks cannot be assumed. The benefits of the oral games were restricted to imitation of oral movements similar to those played in the games.     

The impact of early identification of permanent childhood hearing impairment on speech and language outcomes

It is well established that permanent childhood hearing impairment (PCHI) has a detrimental impact on speech and language development. The past two decades have seen the gradual introduction of universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) programmes coupled with early intervention programmes. We review studies that have capitalised on the advent of newborn hearing screening to assess the impact of early identification of PCHI on language outcomes in deaf children. The research supports the conclusion that, in children with PCHI, newborn hearing screening and early identification lead to beneficial effects on language development, with the most consistent evidence provided for links between early identification of PCHI and positive language outcomes. Future research needs to encompass a wider range of outcomes and to assess the impact of UNHS in adolescents and young adults.     

Preschool hearing screening: Evaluation of a parental questionnaire

Objective: To evaluate the validity of a parental questionnaire used to screen preschool children for persistent hearing impairment.
Methodology: Six-hundred and eighty-five children aged 4–5 years from a Metropolitan area of Adelaide, Australia, were enrolled. Each parent completed a questionnaire aimed at detecting parental concerns about hearing impairment. Screening audiometry was then performed. Children who failed the initial audiometry screening underwent repeat audiometry screening 6–8 weeks later. The audiometry and questionnaire data were then compared.
Results: Of the 657 children who successfully completed initial audiometry, 544 (83%) passed and 113 (17%) failed. Of the 84 children who had follow-up audiometry, 64 (76%) passed. Parental concerns were identified on questionnaire in 50% of all children. Neither individual questions nor the number of concerns were found to relate to audiometry results. Compared with audiometry results, the hearing screening questionnaire had a sensitivity of 56% and specificity of 52%.
Conclusions: The hearing questionnaire used in this study and in several Australian states is an ineffective screening test for detecting persistent hearing loss.     

听力障碍儿童17例听力检测结果分析

目的探讨完善的听力学评估在听力障碍(听障)儿童听力检测及康复中的重要性。方法对17例既往诊断为听障的儿童进行常规声导抗测试、行为测听、耳声发射等综合听力学评估。结果听障儿童17例中3例听力正常,14例感音神经性听力损失,其中仅1例配戴助听器。结论听障儿童的听力学诊断应建立在完善的听力学评估的基础上。对听障儿童应进行长期听力学随访,直到获得可靠的双耳行为听阈、作出明确的听力学诊断为止。     

Medical management of childhood hearing loss

Hearing loss in children is common. Advances in the identification of infectious diseases at birth or in utero, genetic testing, and diagnostic imaging now permit many infants and children to be identified and treated sooner. Treatment and rehabilitation should be instituted early so that the effects of hearing loss on communication are minimized and the child's social and academic skills maximized. CHL can usually be managed medically or surgically with subsequent return to normal or near normal hearing. Children with SNHL, and their future hearing will benefit from new antiviral agents, less antibiotics, ototoxic more focused chemotherapy, and possibly genetic therapy. Digital and programmable hearing aids, more accessible FM systems, cochlear implants, and bone-anchored hearing aids provide significant rehabilitation potential for children with even very significant hearing losses. Early identification and prevention, however, remain the best strategies to combat hearing loss in children.     

Considerations in the education of children with hearing loss

It is crucial to the development of speech, language, academic, social, and vocational skills that children with a hearing loss be identified as early as possible with an intervention plan developed that encourages family inclusion and participation. Research indicates that early intervention is key to speech intelligibility and the development of age-appropriate language skills. Bess and colleagues found that without appropriate intervention, children with minimal hearing loss experience significant academic delay and social-emotional problems by the third grade. Because most children with an educationally significant hearing loss are in the mainstream of regular education, the best hope for true integration and inclusion is to implement a proactive management plan that prevents failure with its lifelong consequences.