The Future of Education

Deafness without early and appropriate management has very serious consequences for the affected child and his/her family, as hearing during the critical periods of infancy and early childhood is necessary to develop spoken language. Before the implementation of newborn hearing screening programs, children with profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss were usually identified around 2 years of age or even older. Early detection and intervention are believed to be critical steps toward proactive management of these children. Recent technological advances allow for identification of hearing loss soon after birth, and most of the developed countries have started hearing screening programs worldwide throughout the 1990’s.

Turkey started national hearing screening program in 2005 and gradual decrease in age of diagnosis were reported. However, there are still serious weakness in the neonatal hearing screening program in terms of the age of hearing aid fitting and early start in educational programs.

The present study aims to examine the effects of the neonatal hearing screening program on the age of hearing aid fitting and referral for early intervention. The clinical and educational files of deaf children who attend a special school were scanned retrospectively. The data showed significant decrease after 2007 in age of diagnosis. However significant delay in admission to early intervention programs was observed. The reasons of the delay were discussed, the language examples of early diagnosed and educated children were evaluated and some recommendations for future referral programs were presented.