Understanding Hearing Loss

Katy Mitchell | View as single page | Feedback/Impact

Areas for further research

The introduction of the New Born Hearing Screening Programme between 2002 and 2006 (Wood et al., 2015) has resulted in all children having their hearing tested at birth.  However, research has now shown than almost 50% of children on school entry, with a moderate or worse bi-lateral hearing loss, were not diagnosed by the newborn screen. A hearing loss can be progressive or acquired at any point. Watkin and Baldwin (2011) followed up 35,668 children who had been screened at birth, until the end of their reception year at school and concluded that pathways after birth to identify deafness are essential.