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# Do universal hearing screening programs need to be redesigned?
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/do_universal_hearing_screening_programs_need_to_be_redesigned_03/
- Published: 2011-03-23T10:11:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:03:54.000Z
- Description: Illinois researchers reviewed 417 pediatric cochlear implant recipients and found almost a third had passed newborn hearing screening. Those children were diagnosed and implanted later than peers who failed screening, according to results in Archives of Otolaryngology.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Healthcare, Health News, #vivvo-import

by Aimee Keenan-Greene

Are babies passing their hearing tests erroneously - only delaying a diagnosis that leaves them needing cochlear implants later?

Scientists in Illinois set out to determine how often children undergoing implantation had previous universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) results with no indication of hearing loss. 

What they found was that almost one-third of pediatric implant recipients passed initial UNHS and were as a result, older at the time of initial diagnosis and implantation than their peers who had failed UNHS, according to the results in the Archives of Otolaryngology. 

Approximately 30 percent of pediatric implant recipients passed UNHS, regardless of the cause of hearing loss or the presence or absence of known risk factors. 

Researchers say this delayed onset of SNHL limits a doctor's ability to achieve early diagnosis and implantation. 

The Retrospective case reviewed 417 randomly selected pediatric implant recipients from 1991-2008, born before and after UNHS was mandated by law in Illinois. 

Data analyzed included hearing screening status, ages at initial diagnosis of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and severe to profound SNHL, and age at implantation. 

Children born after legally mandated UNHS had significantly younger ages at diagnosis and implantation. 

A younger age of diagnosis of SNHL was not achieved in children who had passed UNHS or who were not screened. 

According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the number of Americans with a hearing loss has doubled during the past 30 years.

Federal surveys show a growing trend in hearing loss for those aged three and up:

13.2 million (1971)

14.2 million (1977) 

20.3 million (1991)

24.2 million (1993) 

An independent researcher estimates 28.6 million Americans had an auditory disorder in 2000.