Copyright 2000 The Denver Post Corporation
The
Denver Post
February 20, 2000 Sunday 2D EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A-33
LENGTH: 473 words
HEADLINE:
Early hearing-loss diagnosis key Babies may still develop vocabulary
BYLINE: By Ann Schrader, Denver Post Medical/Science
Writer,
BODY:
Babies whose hearing loss is detected
before they are 6 months old develop more expressive vocabulary than
babies whose disorders aren't noticed until they are older, a
University of Colorado study has found.
Early detection and
interventions - such as parent instruction in the use of hearing
aids, sign language and speech and hearing therapy - 'gives these
children the opportunity to achieve like hearing children and allows
them to become equal members of our society,' said Professor
Christine Yoshinaga-Itano.
The effects can continue long into a child's
life. Of 368 deaf or hard-of-hearing children studied,
Yoshinaga-Itano said the ones identified before 6 months of age could
understand more words spoken or signed by their parents by age 3.
The study by Yoshinaga-Itano, chairwoman of
CU-Boulder's speech, language and hearing sciences department, and
Assistant Professor Allison Sedey was presented Feb. 12 at the
American Association for the Advancement of Science national meeting.
It builds on 15 years of work by Yoshinaga-Itano.
Yoshinaga-Itano said she has been able to do the work
because Colorado was the first state to mandate universal hearing
tests of all newborns.
About 60 percent of the state's
hospitals had been voluntarily doing the tests before the state
Legislature required the newborn screenings two years ago.
'The urgency for intervention is very high,'
Yoshinaga-Itano said. 'Fortunately, the screening of infants for
hearing loss has been spreading like wildfire in this country and
overseas in the past several years.'
Today, there are 27
states with legislation to establish newborn hearing
screenings.
The impact of hearing is enormous when measured
against the number of words a child possesses at different
ages. Yoshinaga-Itano said there is 'incredible' language
development between the ages of 2 and 3.
At 18 months,
normally hearing children will have 50 words in their vocabulary. By
age 3, they 'own' 600-700 words, she said, with thousands by the time
they reach preschool-age.
'They are incredible learning machines,'
Yoshinaga-Itano said, and the ability to understand a large
vocabulary plays a big role in their development.
Out of
about 4 million children born each year in the United States, it is
estimated that between 12,000 and 24,000 suffer some sort of hearing
disorder. Of these, less than 10 percent are born profoundly deaf.
'When we began this project, we had no idea how
critically important the first six months of life were to the
development of language abilities in children with hearing loss,' she
said. 'It was a surprise that has revolutionized what professionals
do in their identification and intervention processes.'
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Special to The Denver Post Christine
Yoshinga-Itano, the author of a study at University of Colorado, coaches
6-year-old A.J. Cook, who has been deaf since birth.
LOAD-DATE: February 22, 2000 
