Hear for Life

DePaul, with support from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Ear Associates, UPMC and WTAE-TV, has launched Hear for Life -- a year-long public outreach campaign to raise awareness among parents/caregivers and medical providers of diagnostic and treatment options available to address hearing loss in very young children residing in southwestern Pennsylvania. All campaign components, including resource guides and a compendium of parent resources, can be found at www.hear4life.info.

Here are the facts

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, deafness is the number one birth defect in the U.S., with nearly 6 in 1000 infants having some level of permanent hearing impairment. In our region, over 110 children are born every year with a permanent hearing loss, more than 30 of whom will have a profound loss. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania now requires that the hearing of all newborns be screened within the first 30 days of life. Babies who "fail" the newborn hearing screening or who do not reach developmental hearing milestones should be evaluated promptly by an audiologist and diagnosed before they are 3 months old. Ongoing monitoring is important because approximately 30 percent of children with hearing loss are diagnosed later, even after passing their newborn screening.

Universal Newborn Hearing Screening: Facts for Parents

Joint Committee on Infant Hearing 2007 Position Statement: Executive Summary

In some cases, pediatricians and family practitioners may not fully understand the importance of early intervention services for children with permanent hearing loss. The primary care provider may not be aware of the rapidly changing technology in hearing devices, cochlear implantation and microsurgery which would enable a child to maximize or restore his or her hearing. It's not uncommon that a parent is told: "Let's wait and see what happens." It is only when the child's language fails to develop that steps are taken to help the toddler. Precious time to assist that child optimize their eventual oral communication skills is lost. The child will never fully recoup from this delay.

As a result, parents may not provided with adequate resources to monitor developmental milestones. Even in situations where parents may suspect hearing impairment in their child, they may not be given a full range of choices on follow-up diagnosis and treatment. Historically, the majority of children with hearing loss communicated through sign language -- either alone or in combination with the spoken word. Now, technological advances (such as microsurgery, unilateral/bilateral cochlear implantation and digital hearing aids) are providing a greater range of communication options for children beginning at about 6 months of age.

Hear for Life: Campaign Goals

1. Encourage parents, in cases where their baby has failed the newborn hearing screen, to promptly follow up with diagnostic services.
2. Provide parents with information so they may monitor developmental milestones and make informed decisions with respect to enrolling their children in early intervention services as necessary.
3. Develop and distribute comprehensive resource kits for the use of parents as well as pediatricians and other providers in the medical community.
4. Engage parents and providers on topical issues related to deaf education and services via seminars and other types of information exchange.
5. Amend stereotypes by publicizing the achievements of deaf and hard of hearing children in the classroom and community.