Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Original Article
  • Published:

The Colorado Newborn Hearing Screening Project: Effects on Speech and Language Development for Children With Hearing Loss

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To compare the speech and language development of children with bilateral hearing loss and normal cognition who were born in hospitals with universal newborn hearing screening to that of their peers who were born in hospitals without this screening program.

STUDY DESIGN: Subjects for the major analyses are 50 Colorado children (25 matched pairs) from 9 to 61 months old who are participants in a study of the development of children birth to six with bilateral hearing loss. Analyses included parametric dependent t-tests and analysis of covariance, nonparametric χ-squared and Wilcoxon signed rank tests, descriptive statistics and odds ratios.

RESULTS: Newborn screening programs for hearing loss are positively related to scores in expressive and receptive language (p<0.001) and vocabulary production (p<0.001) on standardized inventories; speech intelligibility (p=0.015) from independent ratings; number of different simple consonants (p<0.01) and consonant blends (p=0.026) from phonological transcripts; and total number of intelligible words (p<0.01) and number of different words produced (p<0.01) from computer analysis of videotaped language samples.

CONCLUSION: Hospital-based newborn hearing screening programs are positively related to language and speech performance for children in early intervention programs who are deaf and hard of hearing.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Similar content being viewed by others

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (contract number NO1-DC-4-2141), the Colorado Department of Education, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and the Marion Downs National Center.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Yoshinaga-Itano PhD, C., Coulter BA, D. & Thomson MA, V. The Colorado Newborn Hearing Screening Project: Effects on Speech and Language Development for Children With Hearing Loss. J Perinatol 20 (Suppl 1), S132–S137 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jp.7200438

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jp.7200438

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links