Screening newborns for a congenital hearing defect leads to earlier detection and intervention, and may reduce developmental deficits in language and speech.

PCHI is a congenital defect that affects 112 per 100,000 children worldwide.

Routine screening of newborns could improve early detection of the condition by as much as 43%, the author states.

Early Intervention Reduces Deficits

Preliminary evidence suggests that enrolling children with PCHI in an intervention program by the age of nine months can reduce language- and speech-development deficits.

Colin Kennedy of Southampton General Hospital, UK, and colleagues conducted an eight-year follow-up study of babies enrolled in the Wessex trial of universal newborn screening for PCHI.

They reviewed a group of 66 seven-to-nine-year-old children with bilateral PCHI who had undergone physiological hearing tests soon after birth and compared them with a group who only had distraction tests when they were seven-to-eight months old.

Strong Evidence

The proportion of children with PCHI referred before six months of age increased from 11 of 35 (31%) without screening to 23 of 31 (74%) during periods of screening, the investigators found.

"Our report … is the strongest available evidence of the added benefit of UNS (universal newborn screening) in the early detection of PCHI," Dr. Kennedy notes.

"Assessment of the effect of early intervention on the speech and language of the children and the costs incurred by their families and by health providers is in progress and will be the subject of future reports," he concludes.