What’s happening in Virginia to kids who fail their newborn hearing screening?

In 2004, the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening became a federally mandated test that hospitals administer to newborns before the parents leave to return home with their new, precious baby.

Research in Virginia showed that in 2014, there were 1,369 babies that did not pass the newborn hearing screening. Unfortunately 50% of those babies (689) did not go back for another test to determine if their baby had any hearing loss. So while Virginia has programs to support deaf and hard of hearing children from birth through adulthood, the families are not receiving the proper information to motivate them to learn more about hearing loss and how it might effect their child’s future.

1-3-6 Family Educator program

To better educate hospital newborn screening teams and audiology clinics across Virginia so they could talk more confidently about hearing screening practices and explain the importance of getting infants back for another test of their hearing after failing the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program began creating awareness around 1-3-6.

legislation

In 2018, Charlotte and I got involved with some legislature that was being proposed. We spent days of our January and February waiting to testify for or against a bill in the Virginia House and Senate.

In short, research has shown that 40% of deaf and hard of hearing kids in Virginia are not getting to kindergarten on par with their hearing peers. With Federal and State funded programs to help identify kids who are deaf and hard of hearing early, then get them into programs to support their language acquisition, whatever their family’s choice may be, WHAT IS GOING ON?