91成人导航

Researchers at 91成人导航 could dramatically change the way hearing problems are identified in babies by creating a new gold standard for testing in hospitals around the country.聽

Audiologists on 91成人导航鈥檚 San Francisco campus are collaborating with a team from Stanford University to develop a method for testing speech processing in infants.聽

Most babies undergo a universal newborn hearing screening to . But the screening doesn鈥檛 detect an important part of the equation鈥攍istening difficulties not related to.

鈥淲e're trying to make that standard (test) better,鈥� said Associate Professor Jiong 鈥淛oe鈥� Hu, by detecting speech processing issues at the same time as hearing loss.

Gabriella Musacchia, associate professor and chair of the department of audiology, explains the difference as hearing versus understanding.聽

For many children who have difficulties processing speech, problems are not identified until they鈥檙e between the ages of 5 and 7 when they start having issues in school.

About 3-5% of school-aged children have listening problems without hearing loss, according to the National Institutes of Health.

鈥淭he reason we're working so hard on this is the earlier we identify the problems, the faster we can get intervention to the children,鈥� said Musacchia.

The interest for Musacchia began when her own baby was born with jaundice, a condition in which newborns鈥� skin appears yellow.

鈥淚t turns out that babies with jaundice have a high chance of having language problems because the bilirubin (a chemical released by red blood cells), which is what makes them yellow, is neurotoxic,鈥� said Musacchia.

Their research started in 2018 and included international collaboration with Nanjing Maternal and Child Health Hospital in Nanjing, China due to the country鈥檚 high rate of jaundice.聽

91成人导航 faculty members and several students visited China prior to COVID to examine infants and collect data. Anna Zhdamirova 鈥�19 was a student during one of those trips.

鈥淲e tested (the babies) using a specialized method where you read their brainwaves in response to sounds,鈥� said Zhdamirova.

A headphone was put on one ear, often as babies slept. 鈥淲e put electrodes on the forehead and behind the ears, and that鈥檚 how you read the brainwaves,鈥� she explained.

鈥淲hat we've found is that infants who are at risk for developing these problems can be reliably identified with our new methods,鈥� said Musacchia.

They鈥檙e now working to perfect the stimulus (specific sound) used for testing and establish clinic-ready protocols.

鈥淭he next step is to make it more clinician-friendly,鈥� said Hu, meaning fast and simple.

Five 91成人导航 students are on the project.

鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to perfect it on grown adults before taking it to the neonatal level,鈥� said Madeleine Buchanan 鈥�24, a first-year doctor of audiology student. She recently learned how to place the probes on people鈥檚 heads and record brain responses to sounds.

鈥淚'll be able to actually perform this on patients that come into the clinic or I can do it on my fellow classmates, so that will provide lots of data and accuracy before taking it to that next stage,鈥� said Buchanan.

Once they finish collecting and analyzing data, the new method will be used in a study with 100 infants at Stanford University鈥檚 Lucile Packard Children鈥檚 Hospital Audiology Center headed by Matthew Fitzgerald, chief of audiology at Stanford Ear Institute.聽

It鈥檚 the last step before the new testing method can be implemented.

The research has been a collaboration among two 91成人导航 faculty members, two Stanford faculty members, 20 91成人导航 students, with five doctors and two nurses from Nanjing contributing.

They鈥檙e also working with Intelligent Hearing Systems, the company that makes the machines currently used for hearing tests, to make the process simple, requiring just a push of a button to do the additional testing.

Once the research is complete, Musacchia says they plan to work with universal newborn hearing screening boards to establish their method as part of the standard protocol for hospitals.

鈥淭his would be the new gold standard for hearing assessment,鈥� said Musacchia, allowing children with speech and language processing disorders to get much-needed intervention at a younger age.聽