The Early Hearing Detection and Intervention national meeting is coming to Cincinnati March 6-8, 2023! Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) will be providing in-person, guided tours on March 8 to attendees. CCHMC is one of the top 3 pediatric hospitals in the US, offering a wide range of interdisciplinary care clinics to babies, children, and teens with hearing loss. They specialize in caring for children with multiple developmental problems that often accompany hearing loss. Tours will be provided through their state-of-the-art hearing research labs with hands-on demonstrations, and in audiology, speech-language and developmental disabilities clinics, including the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program, one of the oldest and largest in the country.
Babies who were born premature have a high risk for hearing loss, speech, language, and other developmental problems. Speech-language therapy is often delayed until age 3 or later, and hearing loss may be missed if it is milder or progressive. Through an NIH-funded study, Drs. Lisa Hunter and Jennifer Vannest with their interdisciplinary team are using advanced methods such as cortical EEG to speech sounds (shown below, left ) and MRI to identify babies soon after birth who need therapy. Outcomes are assessed at ages 2-3 years using in-depth speech, language, and literacy measures (below right).
