According to reports,
a third of newborn babies who fail the routine hearing screening test
at birth don't receive any sort of followup evaluation, leaving these
kids susceptible to learning or language development delays.
Yikes! So despite the fact that more American babies than ever
before are actually receiving the newborn screening, there are still
many who never receive the all-important followup with an
audiologist.1-3 babies per thousand actually have some amount of
hearing loss, so it's important to have the followup care so that early
intervention can ensue with no delays in language acquisition skills.
It's not enough to realize at 9 months or 12 months that your child
isn't making sounds; by then they've lost valuable exposure to language
that may be difficult to reagin easily.
I think I can understand what's going on here, though. In
addition to the fact that there's presently a shortage of qualified
audiologists, either parents don't realize how important these hearing
tests are, or they're too busy or sleep-deprived to follow up. So clearly, more education is needed. Before these kids need hearing aids.
