Newborn Hearing Screening and Testing

by CDC

When should an infant be screened for hearing loss?

All infants should be screened for hearing loss before 1 month of age, preferably before leaving the birth hospital. The age of a child when a hearing loss is diagnosed is important to the development of the child's speech, language, cognitive, and psychosocial abilities.

Without universal screening by 1 month, the average age at which hearing loss is identified in children is 2 to 3 years old.

Newborn hearing screening costs about $30 per child and takes about 9 minutes to do. Costs are much higher if a hearing loss is not diagnosed until later in life. In the 1995-1996 school year, the total U.S. costs for special education programs for children with hearing loss exceeded $375 million.

Infants with risk indicators for progressive or delayed-onset hearing loss should receive audiologic monitoring every 6 months until age 3 years.

What happens if an infant does not pass the hearing screening?

All infants who do not pass the hearing screening should be referred for further testing to rule out or confirm a hearing loss. All infants with confirmed hearing loss should be referred for a comprehensive medical evaluation to assess the causes and look for potential or related disabilities. Depending on the results of the audiological and medical examinations, infants may be referred to an intervention program.

What does it mean to have a false positive newborn hearing screening test?

A false positive hearing screening test result is when a baby does not have a hearing loss but the newborn does not pass the hearing screening. Hearing screening tests are not meant to diagnose hearing loss in infants. Instead, they are meant to find all infants that might have a hearing loss. Because they are not a diagnostic test, hearing screening tests sometimes misidentify infants as having a hearing loss.

If a baby does not pass the newborn hearing screening test, it is VERY important to make sure the baby gets follow-up testing to be SURE that the baby does not have a hearing loss.

In the United States, between 10 and100 babies per 1,000 (1 to 10 percent) do not pass the screening test. Only one to three babies per 1,000 (less than 1 percent) actually have hearing loss. This means that most of the babies referred for diagnostic testing will be shown to have no hearing loss.

Why don't all infants have a diagnostic test for hearing loss?

A diagnostic test takes a long time, it cannot be done before a baby goes home from the birth hospital, and it is expensive. A hearing screening test is quick, it can be done before a baby leaves the birth hospital, and it is relatively inexpensive.

Screening tests are common in medicine. Checking your vision with an eye chart in the doctor's office is a screening test. Just because you have trouble reading the eye chart does not necessarily mean that you need glasses. More testing is usually done by a special doctor - an eye doctor. In the same way, if a baby does not pass the hearing screening test, more testing is done by a specialist called an audiologist.

If a baby does not pass the newborn hearing screening test, it is VERY important to make sure the baby gets a follow-up diagnostic test. To be SURE that the baby does not have a hearing loss.

What is an Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) test?

Auditory (hearing) Brainstem Response - a test that checks the brain's response to sound and is measured by placing electrodes (non-invasive) on the head to record the brain's response to sound.

About the Author

www.cdc.gov
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of the 13 major operating components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is the principal agency in the United States government for protecting the health and safety of all Americans and for providing essential human services, especially for those people who are least able to help themselves.