The Rhode Island Hearing Assessment Program will be hosting their 18th Annual Seminar on Monday, May 21, 2012 from 8:00am-4:30pm at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the Crossings (801 Greenwich Ave., Warwick, RI 02886). The event entitled “Creating Positive Environments for Children with Hearing Loss” will cover such topics as: Programs that provide support for families or interventions for children birth to 3, 3-5, or early school age; research focusing on assessment or management of infants or children with hearing loss; and quality improvement initiatives. Students and professionals are now being invited to submit abstracts for poster presentations. Please follow the link to read more and be sure to submit abstracts if interested by February 3, 2012.

Link: http://www.infanthearing.org/ncham_news/docs/ri_hearing_assessment_program.pdf

November Issue of AAP’s EHDI E-Mail Express is now
available and includes some great information on subjects such as:

     -A
new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers and published in the
November 14 Archives of Internal Medicine  finds that nearly a fifth of
all Americans 12 years or older have hearing loss so severe that it may
make communication difficult.
     -Book/resources for parents of a child who is deaf or hard of hearing
     -Useful resources for families provided by Hands & Voices

and more!!  Check it
out to find current news and information from the American Academy of
Pediatrics!

Link: http://www.infanthearing.org/ncham_news/docs/EHDI_Email_Express_November2011.pdf

This
report, from Child Trends and the Office of Planning Research and
Evaluation (OPRE) at the Administration Children and Families, reviews
high quality family-provider practices
across health, education, and social work fields in order to identify
common practices in positive family-provider relationships.

Link: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/cc/childcare_technical/reports/family_provider_multi.pdf

On
November 16, 2011 the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special
Education Programs (OSEP) held a training session on the new regulations
for implementing Part C of
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Materials from
the session are now available online.

Link: http://osep-part-c.tadnet.org/materials

A new report from the Easter Seals gives a sense for how well each state
takes care of its youngest children with disabilities and delays. It
shows that infants and toddlers
in nearly every state continue to fall behind, many will never catch
up; yet, with the right investment in treatment and therapy before the
age of five, states can change the state of early intervention for
millions of families across the country. See the
read more link for the full report as well as individual state profiles.

Link: http://www.easterseals.com/site/PageServer?pagename=ntlc10_mffc_state_profiles_download

President Obama recently announced that the Administration will go forward with final regulations related to recompetition and underperforming Head Start and Early Head Start Agencies. The Administration’s pursuit of excellence ensures that the NHSA and government can work together
through thoughtful and forward-thinking reform measures, resulting in
efficient service delivery and the highest quality standards. Follow the link to the video on President Obama’s Speech: http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2011/11/08/president-obama-speaks-holding-head-start-programs-accountable

Link: http://www.nhsa.org/statement_on_designation_renewal_rule

Each year, Dr. Sherry Gaddis Weldele and her husband Frank, both licensed doctors of audiology
take mission trips to South America and Mexico to help people hear,
seeing mostly children with hearing problems. These children have no other means to
obtain hearing aids and many of these children have hearing problems because of the lack of
health care. Sherry and Frank take portable testing equipment with them and have a 95 percent accuracy rate to detect hearing loss, something this couple has been doing for the past
10 years. The couple want
people to know any donation, whether it is money or used hearing aids
will be put to good use. The deadline to donate is the end of January 2012.

Link: http://www.journalstandard.com/features/x1904671753/Mission-to-hear-Couple-seeks-hearing-aids-for-children-in-Mexico

This is an article in the latest of a series of case studies
produced by the Catalyst Center and NCHAM on challenges families face in getting their children’s care paid for.  Read about “the Paxton Family: Doing What it Takes to Meet
Chance’s Hearing Needs.” 

Link: http://hdwg.org/catalyst/stories/5

The Minnesota Academy of Audiology (MAA), an organization
representing audiologists within the state, is actively warning hearing
healthcare consumers that the purchase of hearing aids over the Internet
may have serious consequences to their health. The sale of any
hearing device, whether a personal sound amplifier or hearing aid,
without the diagnostic and rehabilitative services of a qualified,
licensed professional puts the consumer at risk, according to the MAA. This is because audiologists must ensure a patient’s hearing loss is not
due to medical or surgical conditions. Unfortunately for the consumer,
a simple online hearing test does not successfully identify hearing
loss that can be treated medically.

Link: http://www.echopress.com/event/article/id/89607/group/News/

Nearly one in five Americans age 12 and older experience hearing loss severe enough to interfere with day-to-day communication.The new research, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine,
examined data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination
Surveys, or NHNES, which has collected health information from thousands
of Americans since 1971. The researchers looked specifically at people
age 12 and older — men and women of all races — whose hearing had been
tested during NHANES exams.

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/americans-hearing-loss/story?id=14949805#.Tsam7PIUXng