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[Deafness in children: new modalities of neonatal screening]
1Centre d'Action Médico-Sociale Précoce d'Audiologie Laboratoire d'Audiologie, Hôpital Pellegrin, Bordeaux, France.
Insights
Early identification of severe-profound hearing loss in newborns is crucial. Objective screening methods provide presumptive diagnoses, with definitive diagnosis and intervention by 5-6 months for optimal outcomes in deaf children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Audiology
- Neonatal Care
Context:
- Neonatal hearing screening programs are essential for early detection of hearing loss.
- Current screening utilizes behavioral tests and objective methods like auditory brainstem responses (ABR) and evoked acoustic emissions.
- Subjective methods have limitations, including inability to detect mild/moderate hearing loss and potential for errors.
Purpose:
- To emphasize the critical need for early identification of severe-profound hearing loss in neonates.
- To highlight the diagnostic capabilities and limitations of current neonatal hearing screening methods.
- To advocate for increased awareness among parents and healthcare professionals regarding neonatal hearing loss.
Summary:
- Early identification of severe-profound hearing loss is vital for neonates.
- Objective methods like ABR offer presumptive diagnoses, but definitive diagnosis requires specialized audiometry at 5-6 months.
- Behavioral audiometry is recommended for high-risk infants at 5-6 months, while subjective tests have limitations.
Impact:
- Facilitates timely intervention, amplification, and early education for deaf children.
- Improves diagnostic accuracy by distinguishing presumptive from definitive diagnoses.
- Enhances parental and medical awareness, leading to better management of neonatal hearing impairment.
Abstract:
The identification of severe-profound hearing loss must be early. Hearing screening programs among neonates use behavioral test (as in France the Veit and Bizaguet Test) or objective methods as ABR (auditory brain stem responses, evoked acoustic emissions). The objective methods give a presumptive diagnosis. A certainty diagnosis is only possible at 5-6 months by a specific audiometric technique in order to adapt better the amplification and the early education of deaf children. The subjective procedures cannot discover mild/moderate hearing loss. In addition there are false-positive and false-negative error rates. Thus we direct our work towards a greater sensitization among parents of general, neonates population, among doctors. Moreover all the infants at high risk have a behavioral audiometry at 5-6 months.