Connect
MJA
MJA

Newborn hearing screening: decision time for Australia

Melissa A Wake
Med J Aust 2002; 177 (4): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2002.tb04723.x
Published online: 19 August 2002

Australia does not do well in the early detection of congenital hearing impairment. Only about 25% of infants born with hearing impairment are diagnosed by the age of 12 months, and for many children deafness remains a disability leading to severe and lasting language impairment.1 The technology for newborn hearing screening has now been in regular use in many parts of the world for much of the past decade, and there is at last some persuasive evidence that very early detection helps these children achieve normal language skills.2,3 This evidence is far from perfect: 4 only one randomised controlled trial of detection rates with and without newborn screening has been reported, and no randomised controlled trial has yet examined outcomes of hearing screening. Nonetheless, universal newborn hearing screening has become not only possible but expected in the United States and Canada, the United Kingdom and many European countries. However, it has not yet been widely implemented in Australia. As a result, the excellent diagnostic and rehabilitative services available to all Australian children once the diagnosis of hearing impairment has been made contrasts strongly with our patchy and very incomplete ascertainment of hearing impairment in the first year of life.


  • Centre for Community Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, VIC.



  • 1. Wake M, Poulakis Z, Hughes EK, Rickards FW. Hearing impairment: age at diagnosis, severity, and language outcomes at 7-8 years [abstract]. Pediatr Res 2002. In press.
  • 2. Moeller MP. Early intervention and language development in children who are deaf and hard of hearing. Pediatrics 2000; 106: E43.
  • 3. Yoshinaga-Itano C, Sedey AL, Coulter DK, Mehl AL. Language of early- and later-identified children with hearing loss. Pediatrics 1998; 102: 1161-1171.
  • 4. Thompson DC, McPhillips H, Davis RL, et al. Universal newborn hearing screening. Summary of evidence. JAMA 2001; 286: 2000-2010.
  • 5. Bailey HD, Bower C, Krishnaswamy J, Coates HL. Newborn hearing screening in Western Australia. Med J Aust 2002;177: 180-185.
  • 6. Joint Committee on Infant Hearing. Year 2000 Position Statement: principles and guidelines for early hearing detection and intervention programs. Pediatrics 2000; 106: 798-817.
  • 7. Australian consensus statement on universal neonatal hearing screening. Aust Educ Deaf 2001; 7: 47-48.
  • 8. Mehl AL, Thomson V. The Colorado newborn hearing screening project, 1992-1999: On the threshold of effective population-based universal newborn hearing screening. Pediatrics 2002; 109: E7.
  • 9. Wessex Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening Trial Group. Controlled trial of universal neonatal screening for early identification of permanent childhood hearing impairment. Lancet 1998; 352: 1957-1964.
  • 10. Davis A, Bamford J, Wilson I, et al. A critical review of the role of neonatal hearing screening in the detection of congenital hearing impairment. Health Technol Assess 1997; 1(10): i-iv, 1-176.
  • 11. Russ SA, Rickards F, Poulakis Z, et al. Six year effectiveness of a population based two tier infant hearing screening programme. Arch Dis Child 2002; 86: 245-250.

Author

remove_circle_outline Delete Author
add_circle_outline Add Author

Comment
Do you have any competing interests to declare? *

I/we agree to assign copyright to the Medical Journal of Australia and agree to the Conditions of publication *
I/we agree to the Terms of use of the Medical Journal of Australia *
Email me when people comment on this article

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.