Volume 8 Issue 3 (pdf) - Andrew John Publishing Inc

seMinars on audition|
Early Intervention for Children with
Hearing loss: An Update for 2013
By Susan Scollie
scollie@nca.uwo.ca
About the Author
Dr. Susan Scollie is an associate professor and faculty scholar at the National Centre for
Audiology at Western University. Together with colleagues, she develops and supports the DSL
Method for hearing aid fitting in adult and children. Her current research focuses on the
evaluation of digital signal processing for hearing aids, and early intervention for children
with hearing loss. In her classroom teaching, Dr. Scollie focuses on calibration, pediatric
audiology, and advanced procedures in amplification
Many Canadian provinces are now
initiating universal newborn
hearing screening programs (UNHS),
while others have not yet begun. This
pattern significantly lags the progress
made in the United States, where 100%
of states have universal newborn hearing
screening programs in place. Why the
difference Over the course of my career,
I have witnessed the transformation of
this area of our scope of practice, from
high-risk registry screening to present
day practices. Interactions with
colleagues involved in this rapidly
changing area has allowed me to observe
the impacts of what I feel have been
major factors in the near-universal
implementation of UNHS south of the
border. These include the recommendations
of the interdisciplinary Joint
Committee on Infant Hearing (JCIH),
which recommended UNHS in 1996.
This impactful group includes not only
those from our profession, but also our
colleagues from medicine (especially
pediatrics), speaking with one evidencebased
voice for the good of the children
whom we serve. They have continued to
do so, with re-jigging of important UNHS
details as recommendation updates in
2007. 1 Recommendations, however, do
not result in successful UNHS practices
on the ground, nor do they ensure that
legislative support for programs is
achieved. These changes have been
largely mediated by the National Centre
for Hearing Assessment and Management
(NCHAM), which has worked diligently
to provide nation-wide clinician training
and legislation development for many
years, among other initiatives.
Remarkably, NCHAM provided proposed
bill “templates” that could be
downloaded at no cost, and used as a
starting place for discussions with
legislators, keeping track on a national
map with colours indicating states with
versus without legislation. With most of
the legwork done, advocates for UNHS
could provide a bill to their elected
representatives that was 99% complete.
This single act is likely responsible for the
widespread legislation supporting UNHS
in the United States, most recently
culminating in The Early Hearing
Detection and Intervention Act (EHDI:
2010) which added an EHDI
requirement to the Public Health Services
Act at the federal level. NCHAM
continues their important work, with
current efforts aimed at promoting
legislation for improved hearing aid
coverage in health care plans.
Do we have parallel efforts in Canada
Although we can lean upon standards
development (such as ANSI) and
evidence from audiology science from
south of the border, leaning upon their
efforts in health care legislation is less
likely to be helpful. Our health care
systems are just too different. It’s
encouraging that we seem to have a
recent parallel to JCIH. The Canadian
Pediatric Society recently issued a report
on Canadian public policy and child and
youth health entitled “Are We Doing
Enough” 2 Listed third among eleven key
areas for improvement is “Newborn
hearing screening” alongside such
mainstream issues as youth smoking,
REVUE CANADIENNE D’AUDITION | CANADIAN HEARING REPORT 37