Childhood Hearing Loss

[INAUDIBLE] Listen closely.

One of these girls was born profoundly deaf.

She's the one carrying the conversation.

SPEAKER 1:[SINGING] One little seashell-- Three-year-old Ella Muse failed her newborn hearing screening in the hospital.

A few weeks later, she had a hearing re-screen with a pediatric audiologist.

CARIANNE MUSE: At three and a half months, we knew that Ella had profound hearing loss, and the next step was hearing aids.

Is your ear working? No.

Let me check this one.

It is working.

Ella then started in the Early Intervention Program at the Atlanta Speech School.

It's been a miracle.

Horse.

It's been incredible to watch, and every now and then it still catches me off guard that she was ever a profoundly deaf child.

Ella's success story comes out of the 1-3-6 Program 1-3-6 is that all children, from birth, should be screened for hearing loss by one month of age.

And it's because of otoacoustic emissions that we're able to screen newborns in a quick, cost-efficient and time-efficient manner so we can really meet that goal of universal infant screening.

We're going to do the visual reinforcement audiology next.

Newborns who fail the screening should have an audiology exam by three months of age.

PRADEEP SINHA: Most pediatricians do have proper screening equipment.

And again, I want to underscore the word screening.

Because really to get properly tested, you need to go to an audiologist.

And generally they're found either in private practice or in practice with an ENT physician.

If hearing loss is detected, the child should be referred for intervention before six months of age.

The premise behind this was to most children did not get diagnosed till they were about three years of age.

A lot of these children were unable to catch up academically, emotionally, socially with their peers.

So the urgency of doing the 1-3-6 as close as to birth as we can to get that child in an intervention program is essential-- essential.

Ahhh, good listening.

Yay! Did you hear it? I am helping the parents put in language into what we call receptive language-- how they know that that word means something.

[? Sloane, ?] did you say you wanted a turn?

?] I want a turn.

OK, can you ask me nicely?

?] I want a turn.

In the toddler program, it's pulling it out of the child.

They already know the words, a lot of the words.

They know the language, but we're trying to get the children to speak.

Doggy. ?] You got a doggy?

Can you show your friends?

Even with universal newborn hearing screening, some children, like Colin Giles, are missed.

Ss-slot.

Colin failed his newborn hearing screening, and then we went back two weeks later to get tested, and he passed.

As he grew older-- He talked on time, but we did notice that his speech-- a lot of people had trouble understanding him.

Amelia, what color is this?

White.

White, good job.

When his sister Amelia was born, she failed her newborn hearing screening and was diagnosed with moderate to severe hearing loss.

Since it was genetic, Colin was retested at age four and found to have mild to moderate hearing loss.

It was harder for us to take that Colin had hearing loss because we caught him late.

Escape to the skyscraper.

Now he is getting speech therapy through his local school.

Hearing loss is one of the key things everybody should check for if there's any sort of learning or speech disability and even behavioral disabilities or behavioral problems, believe it or not.

Whenever there's a hearing loss, you must treat it.

NARRATOR: With aggressive treatment, after three short years, Ella Muse is being mainstreamed into a regular classroom.

Now being identified at birth, getting into intervention so early, is really changing what a deaf child looks like.