Newborn hearing tests may not really work. It has been discovered that about 30% of child hearing assistance cochlear implants are only inserted after diagnosis is determined at a young age and not at birth.
The authors of the new study explain:
“When universal newborn hearing screening programs (UNHS) were initially conceived, it was presumed that most hearing-impaired children, especially those without risk factors for progressive hearing loss, would fail the objective screening performed during the newborn period, thus making early diagnosis and intervention possible on a widespread basis.”
UNHS became mandated by law in 2003 for use in all birthing hospitals in the state of Illinois at least. Data for 391 children who received cochlear implants in Illinois from 1991 through 2008 was reviewed and patients were divided into those born before mandatory UNHS (264 children) and those born after the screening became legally required (127 children).
A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The cochlear implant is often referred to as a bionic ear.
As of April 2009, approximately 188,000 people worldwide had received cochlear implants. In the United States, about 40,000 adults and over 30,000 children are recipients. The vast majority are in developed countries due to the high cost of the device, surgery and post-implantation therapy. A small but growing segment of recipients have bilateral implants (one implant in each cochlea).
Children born after the law in Illinois was implemented were screened at a much higher rate than those born before (85% vs. 32.6%). Of the 127 children born after the UNHS mandate, 83 (65.4%) had a known cause of or at least one risk factor for hearing loss, and 21 of those children (25.3%) passed hearing screenings.
The study continues:
“Almost one-third of our pediatric implant recipients pass UNHS and are older at the time of initial diagnosis and implantation than their peers who fail UNHS. Delayed onset of sensorineural hearing loss [hearing loss stemming from the inner ear or central processing centers in the brain] limits our ability to achieve early diagnosis and implantation of a significant number of deaf children.”
Overall, children screened after the UNHS mandate were significantly younger at diagnosis of hearing loss, age at diagnosis of severe to profound hearing loss and age at implantation than children born prior to passage of the law. Additionally, children who failed screenings were diagnosed (average age 5.9 months) and underwent implantation (average age 1.7 years) significantly earlier than those who passed or were not screened as newborns.
Cochlear implants for congenitally deaf children are considered to be most effective when implanted at a young age, during the critical period in which the brain is still learning to interpret sound. Hence they are implanted before the recipients can decide for themselves, on the assumption that deafness is a disability.
However, this procedure does not come without controversy. Deaf culture critics argue that the cochlear implant and the subsequent therapy often become the focus of the child’s identity at the expense of a possible future Deaf identity and ease of communication in sign language, and claim that measuring the child’s success only by their mastery of hearing and speech will lead to a poor self-image as “disabled” (because the implants do not produce normal hearing) rather than having the healthy self-concept of a proudly Deaf person.
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Written by Sy Kraft, B.A.