Infants around the world are being screened for hearing loss after research led by CU-Boulder Professor Christine Yoshinaga-Itano showed early intervention could result in age-appropriate language development even for children with hearing problems.

Yoshinaga-Itano, vice provost and associate vice chancellor for diversity and equity and former chair of the speech, language, and hearing sciences department, found that Colorado infants diagnosed with hearing loss in their first six months eventually demonstrated dramatically better language levels than those who were diagnosed later. The first six months are a particularly sensitive period for vocabulary development.

	Christine Yoshinaga-Itano has proved that early screening for hearing loss improves a child's language skills. Graduate students Tammy Fredrickson (top left and bottom left) and Jennifer Barnes (middle) administer hearing tests to two Colorado babies.

"Children with hearing loss born in Colorado hospitals that screened for it had an 82.4 percent probability of attaining age-appropriate language in the first five years of life, compared to 31.6 percent of the non-screened group," she said.

As a direct result of Yoshinaga-Itano's research, Colorado enacted legislation in 1998 to mandate hearing screening for all infants before they leave the hospital. Now 35 states have similar legislation, and last year almost 80 percent of U.S.-born infants were screened.

"Now the initiative has moved throughout the world," said Yoshinaga-Itano, whose work has helped other countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, develop their own programs. "I've worked with international colleagues to set up programs in their countries so they can replicate what we've done in Colorado."

Colorado continues to lead the world in identifying infant hearing loss. In 1998, the average age for identifying children with hearing loss was 2.5 years. Today in Colorado, it is six to eight weeks, the best in the world.

Yoshinaga-Itano is combining experience with advances in medical diagnostic technology to move into related research. "Genetics, neurological development, how early access to language impacts neural development - that's where we're going with our research right now," she said.

"It's been really exciting to be involved in something that's gone beyond the state level and moved at such high speed. It's good to know that the work you do can have real impact on people's lives, and not just locally but nationally and internationally."