The Development of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children Identified Early Through the High-Risk Registry

The high-risk registry was used as a screening device for identifying hearing loss for many decades in Colorado. It reportedly missed approximately 50% of all infants with congenital sensorineural hearing loss (Mehl & Thomson, 1998; Parving, 1993; Watkins, Baldwin, & McEnery, 1991). Little is known about the developmental characteristics of this population. This article describes children identified through the high-risk registry. These children have been divided into two groups according to their age of identification: (a) deaf and hard of hearing children identified before age 6 months, and (b) deaf and hard of hearing children identified between ages 7 and 18 months. The children identified before age 6 months and receiving intervention at an average of 2 to 3 months after identification of hearing loss had significantly higher levels of receptive and expressive language, personal-social development, expressive and receptive vocabulary, general development, situation comprehension, and vowel production. The high-risk registry used for newborn hearing screening has been replaced by universal newborn physiological hearing screening in the state of Colorado.