18th ANNUAL EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION MEETING
March 3-5, 2019 • Chicago, IL
3/04/2019 | 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM | Timeliness of EHDI Benchmarks in NICU Infants | Malpensa
Timeliness of EHDI Benchmarks in NICU Infants
In the United States, Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) programs have improved the timeliness of diagnosis and service delivery for Deaf and hard of hearing children, including early hearing aid fitting. National guidelines outline a 1-3-6 approach: infants are to be screened by one month of age, diagnosed by three months, and enrolled in early intervention where appropriate by six months. However, no current guidelines are available to interpret these benchmarks in the presence of a lengthy NICU stay after birth. Previous publications from the Outcomes of Children with Hearing Loss (OCHL) study have explored several epidemiological topics including child- and family-specific risk factors for service provision delay, characteristics of late onset and late identified hearing loss within the OCHL cohort, and relative risk of JCIH risk factors. The present work analyzes the timeliness of these benchmarks for infants with hearing loss who had lengthy admissions to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) compared with non-NICU peers. Our research aims address the following questions:
How does timeliness of service delivery compare for babies with NICU stays relative to non-NICU peers after referring on the newborn hearing screening? We predict that NICU infants will experience more delays in completing the EHDI process than non-NICU peers.
Are the same predictive factors for timely follow-up observed in the NICU group as were previously observed in the general OCHL cohort? We predict that maternal education will remain a significant demographic predictor of timely completion of the EHDI process.
How much effort did it take parents of NICU infants to access to early intervention (EI) services compared to non-NICU peers? We predict that NICU families will report fewer barriers to accessing EI services than non-NICU families.
- Recognize the epidemiological findings related to infant hearing loss that have emerged from the OCHL longitudinal study.
- Identify the reasons why special consideration for NICU infants may result in an outsized positive impact on EHDI program effectiveness.
- Describe the challenges that NICU infants may face in achieving timely diagnosis and service delivery compared with non-NICU peers.
Presentation:
18878_10280CaitlinSapp.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
18878_10280CaitlinSapp.rtf
Presenters/Authors
Caitlin Sapp
(), University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, caitlin.sapp@unchealth.unc.edu;
Dr. Sapp is the head of Pediatric Audiology at UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill, NC, and the director of the Early Hearing Loss Lab. Her research interests include examining the factors that improve language and social outcomes for children who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing, in particular malleable clinical factors like parent counseling.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exist.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.