MDNC - About Us

In contrast, early identification and intervention prior to 6 months of age has a significant positive impact on development.

Researchers at the University of Colorado have shown that children identified at birth with mild-to-severe hearing loss and who receive intervention before 6 months fall within a normal range of language comprehension and expression as well as social development. Children with hearing loss diagnosed after six months of age experience significant delays in both language and social development.

The National Program

The Marion Downs National Center at The University of Colorado at Boulder was originally established by a federal grant for the coordination of statewide systems for screening, diagnosis, and intervention for newborns and infants with hearing loss. From 1996 to 2000, the center coordinated the implementation of universal newborn hearing screening programs in 17 states under a grant from the U.S. Public Health Service. These states included Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming.

Primary Goals

The Center provides technical assistance to states who seek to identify hearing loss by 3 months of age, and to provide amplification as early as possible. Because screening for hearing loss in itself does not guarantee a positive outcome, the Center also focuses on what happens after screening. Families need to receive appropriate information and services following newborn hearing screening., to start intervention services by six months of age, and to measure the impact of early identification of hearing loss on development.

Colorado has been uniquely prepared to undertake these goals, It has, without any major funding, put in place a universal screening program in which can someone update these figures???? 60% of the state's 54,000 births are screened. Colorado also has in place an organizational structure that places 75% of all children with hearing loss in the state in appropriate intervention by six months of age, 50% by the age of three months.

The Team Approach

The Center places a high priority on the involvement of parent and consumer groups. The center advocates for the establishment of advisory boards, which should be set up to help states develop plans for coordinated systems of screening, assessment and intervention, which will include public health personnel (Maternal Child Health Directors, Directors of Speech and Hearing Programs in State and Welfare Agencies), physicians, audiologists, educators, parents and representatives of the deaf community.

The Center maintains a parent liaison whose primary responsibility is to link parent groups, both national and state, to the issues which impact families in the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention systems in all states. The Center also maintains a Deaf liaison whose primary responsibility is to link Deaf and hard-of-hearing advocacy groups to the newborn hearing project in each state.

Dr. Marion Downs

The Center is named in honor of Dr. Marion Downs, a world-renowned pioneer in pediatric audiology.

Dr. Downs has said that the establishment of the center in her honor signified a national commitment to improving the lives of children who are born deaf or hard of hearing. "If a child can be identified at birth and receive immediate intervention, we have done our jobs," she said. "On the other hand, if we don't detect the hearing loss until the child reaches 2 years of age, that child has, in most cases, lost the opportunity to catch up with others his or her own age. Why, with all the tools we have, would we not speed the time to establish a model for screening and early intervention in our nation's hospitals?"

A Brief Profile of Marion Downs

The Marion Downs National Center Staff

Goals