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Early identification of hearing impaired infants: Public Law 94-142 falls short
Public Law (P.L.) 94-142, although greatly increasing the physician's role in delivery of services to handicapped children, falls short in meeting the needs of hearing impaired children from birth to 36 months in that it does not mandate referral services until age three years. The literature has shown that both conductive and sensorineural hearing losses cause delay in the development of normal speech and language. Further, those children identified and treated earlier demonstrate higher skill levels on speech and language tasks than those children identified late. The High Risk Register for hearing loss has been found a reliable means to identify such children. Given that the most critical period for learning language is from birth to three years and that at least two objective and reliable procedures for evaluating the hearing of infants and pre-school children, Impedance Audiometry and Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry, are becoming more readily available in the United States, it is no longer acceptable to support the "wait and see" approach in referring suspected hearing impaired children for auditory, speech, and language diagnostics and habilitative intervention.
Public Law (P.L.) 94-142, although greatly increasing the physician's role in delivery of services to handicapped children, falls short in meeting the needs of hearing impaired children from birth to 36 months in that it does not mandate referral services until age three years. The literature has shown that both conductive and sensorineural hearing losses cause delay in the development of normal speech and language. Further, those children identified and treated earlier demonstrate higher skill levels on speech and language tasks than those children identified late. The High Risk Register for hearing loss has been found a reliable means to identify such children. Given that the most critical period for learning language is from birth to three years and that at least two objective and reliable procedures for evaluating the hearing of infants and pre-school children, Impedance Audiometry and Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry, are becoming more readily available in the United States, it is no longer acceptable to support the "wait and see" approach in referring suspected hearing impaired children for auditory, speech, and language diagnostics and habilitative intervention.