Copyright 2000 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
The
Plain Dealer
July 13, 2000 Thursday, FINAL / ALL
SECTION: EDITORIALS & FORUM; Pg. 8B
LENGTH: 331 words
HEADLINE:
TESTING FOR DEAFNESS IN NEWBORNS SHOULD BE ROUTINE
BYLINE: by ALBERT F. PAOLINO
DATELINE: CLEVELAND HEIGHTS
BODY:
In an otherwise excellent report on
testing newborns for deafness ("Detecting deafness: Universal
newborn hearing tests weighed by Ohio legislature," June 26),
Dr. Raymond Votypka, an otolaryngologist, made some of the most egregious
comments I have seen attributed to a professional in this field. To support his
contention that such tests are not only unnecessary but "a waste of money," he
further avers that "if you can't pick up (that) a kid (is deaf) in under six
months, you're brain-dead." Just prior to this remark, in a self-contradiction,
he states, "If a smart person can't figure her kid's deaf in three months,
you're in trouble."
As a retired clinical psychologist and erstwhile
Case Western Reserve University clinical professor who trains doctoral
clinicians, I have treated totally deaf patients during the lip-reading days of
the deaf, and would challenge Votypka to discern deafness in such individuals.
The gratuitous "brain-dead" remark grates in raw fashion on the
sensitive ears of parents of a deaf or less than totally deaf child whose
condition was detected in the toddler stage or later. It is they who suffer the
trials of lack of speech in their child only to have the condition detected at
this late age by means of the same test that is given in infancy in more than
half the states in the country.
Would Votypka make the same judgment
about the test for phenylketonuria, which detects a far more minuscule number of
such infants? Ask the parents of such children, and they would cry out that it
sure is worth it. Ask the Ohio parents of a hearing-impaired child, who are
contemplating the excessive expenses of costly hearing and speech therapy made
infinitely more difficult because of the delay in diagnosis. Ask the parents who
have witnessed their children desperately trying to hear the sounds that someday
become speech. Ask me, the grandparent of such a child, and the answer is a
resounding, "yes" to the test for deafness in infancy.
COLUMN: LETTERS
LOAD-DATE:
July 14, 2000 
