Rhode Island Hearing Assessment Program

About the Rhode Island Hearing Assessment Program

The Rhode Island Hearing Assessment Program is designed to identify hearing problems early through newborn screening and diagnosis. Infants identified with hearing loss are referred to services in the community and provided with quality care and support. The program also provides education and resources about other services for children in the state. This site is designed to provide information to the public about how Rhode Island’s hearing assessment system serves infants and their families.

Why focus on newborn hearing?

Hearing loss is the most commonly occurring disability in U.S. infants, and affects as many as 24,000 babies a year. Sadly, most American babies with hearing loss are not diagnosed quickly after birth. In fact, the average age of diagnosis in the U.S. is 30 months. Why the delay? Because in past years, only three to five percent of newborn babies have been screened for hearing loss.

If a hearing problem is detected late it can lead to lifelong challenges such as communication, social, psychological, behavioral, and educational problems. Colorado research has shown that babies who are found to have a hearing loss and receive intervention services within six months of age did better at hearing tests (at 40 months) than those babies who were identified and received services after six months of age.

For more than 40 years, researchers and clinicians across the country have struggled to find a way of identifying hearing loss in newborn babies in a quick and inexpensive way.

In 1993, Rhode Island legislation requiring universal newborn hearing screening took effect.

For more information go to: http://infanthearing.org/status/unhs.state.html

The heart of Rhode Island’s approach is that newborn screening is not the sole focus, but instead is the starting point in a process which makes follow-up services available for those babies found to have a hearing loss. The system includes:

• The Rhode Island Hearing Assessment Program (RIHAP) at Women & Infants Hospital
• Early Intervention Program
• Family Guidance Program, Rhode Island School for the Deaf
• Community Audiology Services