A baby fails a newborn hearing screening and an auditory brainstem response (ABR) indicates profound bilateral hearing loss. From an audiologist’s perspective, fitting for hearing aids and an evaluation for cochlear implant candidacy are often the next steps. But for parents the lag time between identification and implantation is often a stressful time that involves waiting and worrying. This lag, during which infants do not have access to auditory linguistic input, occurs during a sensitive period of prelinguistic communication development (Ruben and Schwartz, 1999).
Topic(s): Cochlear Implants (CI), Newborn Hearing Screening, Hearing Loss, Pediatric Audiology
Australia is the sixth largest country in the world by land mass, but is the 53rd largest by population. The majority of Australians reside in the coastal borders of the country, leaving the midland or “outback” with far fewer. Australia’s population contains a large number of settlers from various countries as well as the first-nations peoples, i.e., Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, who arrived at the mainland and islands more than 50,000 years ago. The first-nations population take great pride in their unique and vibrant culture.
Topic(s): Australia, audiology, Heart of Hearing Group, Newborn Hearing Screening, Health Care
