Value of screening for deafness in the first year of life.

Despite efforts to screen all babies for deafness within their first year, the handicap is still being detected later than is desirable. This study designed to evaluate the effectiveness of current audiometric screening programmes. Hearing tests were carried out on 535 infants between the ages of 6 months and one year using conventional tests, which depend on the infants' response to familiar sounds, and pure-tone audiometry. The results reveal inadequacies in both sets of tests which, coupled with a high default rate, may well account for the very small contribution that routine audiometric screening is making to the early diagnosis of deafness.