4. Late-Onset Hearing Loss Week will occur annually from May 4 through May 10. Resources for you and your families can be found on the Olive Osmond Hearing Fund website: https://www.hearingfund.org/lohlawareness. Lastly, the Utah Department of Health’s Children’s Hearing Aid Program (CHAP) provides hearing aids to financially eligible children under six years of age who do not have insurance coverage for amplification. For more information, go to health.utah.gov/chap. The Utah EHDI program is here to help. Please do not hesitate to call (801) 273-6600 or email ehdi@utah.gov for guidance and/or resources. Resources: Health.utah.gov/ehdi Health.utah.gov/cmv Health.utah.gov/chap Utahbabywatch.org https://www.usdb.org/programs/deaf-and-hard-of-hearing/ parent-infant-program-pip-for-deaf-and-hard-of-hearingchildren/ https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/chart/ . 4. For those infants diagnosed as DHH, check to be sure the audiologist referred them to early intervention. The specialized provider of Part C EI services is the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind Parent Infant Program, otherwise known as PIP. Family enrollment is low for these services in Utah; please encourage the family to take advantage of these very important FREE services. Infant hearing loss should be treated like the neurodevelopmental emergency it is, and the sooner intervention is initiated, the better the child’s developmental outcomes. Utah diagnoses two infants per thousand newborns with hearing loss every year, but not all children can be identified through newborn hearing screening. Three times the number of children at birth are diagnosed with hearing loss by the time they enter school (http://www.jcih. org/posstatemts.htm). For many of these children, their parents and physicians do not know they are at risk for late-onset hearing loss. For this reason, there is growing recognition of the importance of early childhood hearing screening. How can an FP help in the identification of these children? 1. M onitor speech/language and hearing/auditory milestones at every well-child visit. 2. I f a parent/daycare/preschool voices concern about a child’s hearing, take it seriously and refer to a pediatric audiologist right away. “Wait and see” is not an acceptable strategy. 3. R ealize sometimes a little one’s behavioral issues can be a sign of hearing loss. See #2 above. Stephanie Browning McVicar, AuD, CCC-A is the EHDI Programs Manager with the Utah Department of Health. Early Hearing| Continued from page 31 The Utah Department of Health’s Children’s Hearing Aid Program (CHAP) provides hearing aids to financially eligible children under six years of age who do not have insurance coverage for amplification. For more information, go to health.utah.gov/chap. UtahAFP.org | 32
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