New provider education center will offer resources for healthcare professionals on screening, diagnosing and providing services and support to children who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families.
Itasca, IL-- The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau has awarded the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) a five-year, $1.5 million total cooperative agreement to establish a new Provider Education Center within the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) National Network.
Approximately 3 in 1,000 infants are born deaf or hard of hearing. An additional 3 in 1,000 children experience permanent hearing changes after the newborn period and become deaf or hard of hearing during childhood. Early identification--including screening at birth and periodically in childhood, along with the consistent provision of services--are essential to ensure that children who are deaf or hard of hearing experience timely and complete language acquisition. Developing language skills helps lead to healthy cognitive and socio-emotional development.
The Provider Education Center aims to enhance the confidence and training of healthcare and allied health professionals involved in screening, diagnosing, and providing services to infants, children, and families within the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention network. To achieve this goal, the AAP will collaborate with partners such as the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Help Me Grow National Center.
The Provider Education Center will also work with HRSA and other stakeholders to ensure that families have access to accurate, comprehensive, up-to-date, and evidence-based information to allow families to make important decisions for their children in a timely manner. This will include supporting families in decisions with respect to the full range of assistive hearing technologies and communication modalities.
“The Provider Education Center offers the American Academy of Pediatrics an exciting opportunity to build on past efforts and implement innovative new approaches to support the system of care for children who are deaf or hard of hearing,” said Debra Waldron, MD, MPH, FAAP principal investigator for the cooperative agreement and senior vice president for Healthy and Resilient Children, Youth, and Families at the AAP.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics looks forward to collaborating with the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention National Network on these efforts over the next five years.”
The Provider Education Center, as part of the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention National Network, will collaborate with Hands and Voices (who will serve as the Family Leadership in Language and Learning Center) and Gallaudet University (who will serve as the Implementation and Change Center). The Early Hearing Detection and Intervention National Network will provide coordinated support to state/territory Early Hearing Detection and Intervention programs and other system stakeholders at national, state, and local levels.
For more information about the Provider Education Center and AAP Early Hearing Detection and Intervention initiatives, visit the AAP EHDI website.
This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $300,000 with 0% financed with nongovernmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.