For Immediate Release

April 19, 2006

WALSH SET TO INTRODUCE BILL TO REAUTHORIZE LANDMARK HEARING INITIATIVE

Walsh Bill Supports Newborn Hearing Screening Programs Nationwide

"One in every one thousand infants born in the United States today has a severe or profound hearing problem," said Walsh. "Undetected, permanent hearing loss negatively affects the social, emotional, cognitive, and academic development that is crucial to a child's first years of life. Delayed identification and management of hearing loss has a lifelong impact. This bill works to change that for every child born in America."

Congressman Walsh's efforts to impact this issue resulted in passage of the initial legislation in 1999, creating for the first time a comprehensive federal effort to assist states in establishing programs to detect hearing loss in every newborn and to promote appropriate treatment when hearing loss is diagnosed. National EHDI goals are to screen all infants before one month of age, identify hearing loss before three months of age, and have children with hearing loss enrolled in early intervention services before six months of age.

Encouraged and supported by Walsh's legislation, the State of New York established a program in October 2001 requiring all hospitals in the state with 400 or more births per year to screen all newborns for hearing loss prior to discharge. Close to 100% of all babies born in New York are tested today, and early intervention services for infants and toddlers with permanent hearing loss have been expanded all across New York.

When Walsh began his advocacy on this issue, roughly 3% of all babies in the United States were being screened at birth, and there were less than a dozen universal newborn hearing screening programs in the entire country. Today, 93% of all infants in America are screened within one month of birth, and EHDI programs have been established in every state.

"Congressman Walsh's initial legislation is the major reason why we're where we are today," said Karl White, Director of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management. "But there's still a lot of work to be done. It's not just a matter of screening babies. Our challenge is making sure that those babies who are referred from hearing screening programs are quickly connected with appropriate diagnostic programs and then enrolled in appropriate early intervention programs. This new bill helps to do that."

"The reauthorization of this bill will continue to create opportunities for these infants and families to benefit from state-of-the-art technology and receive family-centered therapy all within a child's critical language learning years," said Dr. Arlene Balestra-Marko, founder and director of Hear 2 Learn, a Syracuse-based agency dedicated to intervention for children with hearing loss. "It's truly an exciting time for all of us involved in the intervention process. We have seen such dramatic outcomes in the last five years as those babies who were first identified are now entering the school system, most with very age-appropriate skills overall."

Walsh's bill will reauthorize the federal government's landmark Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) program and approve additional federal funding for release to the states to continue their own EHDI programming. Last year, $10 million was available nationally.

Walsh's efforts on this issue have received praise from the World Council on Hearing Health, National Campaign for Hearing Health, American Academy of Audiology, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. Walsh is the co-founder of the Congressional Hearing Health Caucus - a bipartisan effort to sustain the momentum behind advances in hearing healthcare, science, and public policy throughout the United States - and remains the group's co-chair today.

Walsh is prepared to introduce the legislation next week when Congress returns to session.

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