Anne B. Harris, PhD, Principal Investigator, University of Wisconsin – Madison. Since 2011 the Wisconsin EHDI program, called “Sound Beginnings” (SB), has worked in collaboration with Wisconsin WIC agencies to reach infants at risk for lost to follow-up (LTFU) for newborn hearing screening (NHS). Overall, rates of LTFU have been decreasing in Wisconsin since the WIC NHS alert system was put into place, but it is unclear what part of this is due to the WIC follow-up strategies. The purpose of this …Read More »

Lisa Hunter, PhD, Principal Investigator, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The overall goal of this proposal is to improve follow-up rates of infants who are referred from newborn hearing screening and enrolled in a targeted intervention group by implementing a highly integrated follow-up re-screening program for at-risk children in the Greater Cincinnati area (Hamilton County, Ohio) Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. This work is innovative because it shifts the focus from …Read More »

Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, PhD, Principal Investigator, University of Colorado – Boulder. Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) programs were instituted in the United States to provide infants and toddlers who are deaf or hard of hearing an opportunity to develop language and social/emotional skills commensurate with their cognitive potential. However, there are limited data available to determine if this public health initiative has been met. Although approximately 98% of the babies born in …Read More »