title: The effectiveness of the promotion of newborn hearing screening in Taiwan.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Hearing is a critical ability for the development of a child's speech and language. Many studies in different countries have shown the universal newborn hearing screening and early intervention has greatly reduced the negative impact caused by congenital hearing loss. The first universal newborn hearing screening program in Taiwan took place in MacKay Memorial Hospital in 1998 and was subsequently endorsed by the government. The incidence of bilateral congenital hearing impairment in Taiwan is approximately 2.6 per 1000 live birth. The aim of this paper is to analyze the age of diagnosis, hearing aid fitting, and intervention of congenitally hearing impaired children with and without hearing screening after public awareness and government endorsement of newborn hearing screening.
  
  
  METHODS
  There were 263 hearing impaired children participated in this study, receiving their auditory habilitation therapy at Children's Hearing Foundation from 2006 to 2010. 114 of those children went through newborn hearing screening and 149 without it. The age of diagnosis, hearing aid fitting, and auditory intervention were compared between these two groups. The age of diagnosis and intervention of congenitally hearing impaired children among different years were analyzed too.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The average age of diagnosis was 8.7 months, the age of hearing aid fitting was 12.4 months and age of auditory intervention was 18.8 months for the group of hearing impaired children with newborn hearing screening. For hearing impaired children without newborn screening, their average age of diagnosis was 27.5 months; age of hearing aid fitting was 31.3 months and age of auditory intervention was 40.5 months. There were significant differences in the age of diagnosis, hearing aid fitting and auditory intervention between congenitally hearing impaired children with and without hearing screening.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This research indicates that newborn hearing screening facilitates early identification, diagnosis and intervention of congenitally hearing impaired children in Taiwan. The age of identification, diagnosis and intervention of congenital hearing impaired children has also been reduced gradually over the years after government endorsement of newborn hearing screening in Taiwan.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taitung, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chih-Ming
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Audiology and Speech Therapy, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan; Department of Otolaryngology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taiwan.
authors.forename: I-Ying
authors.initials: IY
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Children's Hearing Foundation, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Ying-Chuan Julie
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Children's Hearing Foundation, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Grace Su-Feng
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Audiology & Speech Language Pathology, Mackay Medical College, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Otolaryngology, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Cheng-Chien
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Hsen-Tien
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.affiliation: Department of Audiology & Speech Language Pathology, Mackay Medical College, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Otolaryngology, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Medicine, Mackay Medical College, Taipei, Taiwan. Electronic address: hclin59@ms29.hinet.net.
authors.forename: Hung-Ching
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006320:Hearing Tests / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D015997:Neonatal Screening / Q000379:methods*; D013624:Taiwan
keywords: Congenital hearing loss; Hearing-impaired children; Newborn hearing screening