BCEHP Background
What is the BC Early Hearing Program?
The BC Early Hearing Program (BCEHP) is a province-wide program for early hearing screening and intervention. The BCEHP is a service of BC Children’s Hospital and the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) in partnership with the regional health authorities and the Ministry of Children and Family Development and their funded agencies.
BCEHP, which was announced in March 2005 by the provincial government, is the first province-wide screening program to check the hearing of newborns in British Columbia.
Hearing is screened shortly after birth, either in hospital or at community sites. Infants who do not exhibit a clear “pass” result on their screenings are referred for comprehensive diagnostic testing. If a child is found to have hearing loss, the BCEHP provides the first set of hearing aids, as well as intervention and communication support services. The BCEHP serves children from birth to five years.
What is the incidence of hearing loss among infants?
About one to three of every 1,000 newborns have hearing loss at birth that can be detected by universal newborn hearing screening programs. This number increases to approximately one in every 50 for babies who require special care at birth. Hearing loss is one of the most common congenital disorders.
What are the benefits of the program?
Prior to the introduction of the BCEHP, the average age of identification of hearing loss in children was approximately two and a half years. Without hearing screening, age of identification is very variable, and is dependent on the degree of hearing loss, whether there is a known risk factor, and whether there is parental concern. Typically, the more the severe the hearing loss, the earlier the diagnosis occurred.
With the introduction of newborn hearing screening, diagnosis of hearing loss occurs in the majority of healthy babies by three months of age. Hearing devices are fit within one month of the confirmed diagnosis. Extended stays in the NICU may lengthen the timeframes.
Other means of identification of hearing loss are much less effective. The High Priority Hearing Registry, which monitored children with risk factors, missed at least half of children with hearing loss, as less than 50 percent of children with hearing loss have an identified risk factor.
With the BCEHP, babies with hearing loss are identified earlier and have intervention and supports in place by the age of six months. In many cases, this is happening at much earlier ages. Studies show that in the absence of other complicating factors, early intervention and support can help children with hearing loss have skills similar to their hearing peers by the time they start kindergarten.
What are the goals of the program?