The development of deaf and hard of hearing children identified early through the high-risk registry.
The high-risk registry was used as a screening device for identifying hearing loss for many decades in Colorado. It reportedly missed approximately 50% of all infants with congenital sensorineural hearing loss (Mehl & Thomson, 1998; Parving, 1993; Watkins, Baldwin, & McEnery, 1991). Little is known about the developmental characteristics of this population. This article describes children identified through the high-risk registry. These children have been divided into two groups according to their age of identification: (a) deaf and hard of hearing children identified before age 6 months, and (b) deaf and hard of hearing children identified between ages 7 and 18 months. The children identified before age 6 months and receiving intervention at an average of 2 to 3 months after identification of hearing loss had significantly higher levels of receptive and expressive language, personal-social development, expressive and receptive vocabulary, general development, situation comprehension, and vowel production. The high-risk registry used for newborn hearing screening has been replaced by universal newborn physiological hearing screening in the state of Colorado.
Yoshinaga-Itano
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Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.
Apuzzo
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ML
D000367:Age Factors; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D003638:Deafness / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D012042:Registries; D018570:Risk Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires