2026 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 15-17, 2026 • Jacksonville, FL
| Access to Hearing Health Care for Children with Cerebral Palsy
Access to Hearing Health Care for Children with Cerebral Palsy
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that ranges in severity, affecting an individual’s muscle coordination, movement, and balance. Approximately 1 out of every 343 children in the United States is diagnosed with CP. Due to the underlying etiologies of CP, hearing loss is a common co-occurrence. The purpose of this study is to better understand trends in hearing health care access for children with CP at our institution. Using retrospective clinical data from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, our dataset included 798 children (< 8.0 years) who had a CP diagnosis. The sample was 46% male. Child Opportunity Index scores based on zip code indicated that 36% of children lived in very low (< 20th percentile) or low (20th to 40th percentile) resourced communities. Preliminary analysis revealed that 503 children with CP (or 63%) were seen in our audiology clinic for a hearing evaluation. Additionally, 68 of these children were evaluated or fitted with amplification. Results from an ongoing chart review of a subset of children in this dataset will be shared to explore the likelihood of accessing hearing health care based on a child’s risk factors for hearing loss. These findings are expected to identify barriers to care and improve the timeliness of determining hearing status for children in this population.
Keywords: audiology services, cerebral palsy, access to care, pediatrics, hearing loss
- Participants will be able to describe the high co-occurrence of hearing loss and cerebral palsy.
- Participants will be able to identify potential barriers to accessing hearing health care for children with cerebral palsy.
- Participants will be able to identify potential strategies for improving access to hearing health care that are tailored to the unique needs of children with cerebral palsy.
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Presenters/Authors
Julie Keener
(Primary Presenter,Author,Co-Author), Vanderbilt University, julie.keener@vanderbilt.edu;
Julie Keener is a 3rd year AuD trainee at Vanderbilt University. This work is in partial fulfillment of a capstone requirement and was supported by funding from VICTR by CTSA award No. UL1TR002243 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent official views of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences or the National Institute of Health. She is also an affiliate of the Pediatric Hearing Loss Specialty Track, which is offered as part of the AuD curriculum.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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No relevant financial relationship exists.
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No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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Financial relationship with The Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR) .
Nature: This work is in partial fulfillment of a capstone requirement and was supported by funding from VICTR by CTSA award No. UL1TR002243 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent official views of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences or the National Institute of Health.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Sophie Gould
(Co-Presenter), Vanderbilt University, sophia.e.gould@Vanderbilt.Edu;
Sophia Gould is a 2nd year AuD trainee at Vanderbilt University. She is a LEND fellow through The Vanderbilt Consortium LEND that is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number T73MC30767. She is also an affiliate of the Pediatric Hearing Loss Specialty Track, which is offered as part of the AuD curriculum.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Audrey Fontenot
(Co-Presenter), Vanderbilt University, audrey.b.fontenot@Vanderbilt.Edu;
Audrey Fontenot is a 1st year AuD trainee at Vanderbilt University. She is a LEND fellow through The Vanderbilt Consortium LEND that is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number T73MC30767. She is also an affiliate of the Pediatric Hearing Loss Specialty Track, which is offered as part of the AuD curriculum.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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Financial relationship with .
Nature: .
Nonfinancial -
Non-Financial relationship with .
Nature: .
Rachel Hughes
(Author,Co-Author), Vanderbilt University Medical Center, rachel.c.hughes@vumc.org;
Rachel C. Hughes, Au.D., CCC-A is an audiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Hughes has 16 years of experience in pediatric diagnostics in both inpatient and outpatient settings. She has extensive expertise in coordinated and specialized care for children with complex medical and developmental profiles. Dr. Hughes completed her training at Florida State University (B.S.) and the University of South Florida (Au.D.).
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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AAA DISCLOSURE:
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Angela Bonino
(Author,Co-Author), Vanderbilt University, angela.bonino@vumc.org;
Angela Yarnell Bonino, Ph.D., CCC-A is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She completed her clinical training in audiology at Vanderbilt University, and her Ph.D. and postdoctoral training at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was previously on faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Bonino’s research expertise is in human auditory development with behavioral methods. Current research is focused on advancing hearing health care for children with developmental disabilities by identifying gaps in clinical care and improving behavioral hearing assessment procedures.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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AAA DISCLOSURE:
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