Infant hearing test transforms lives
When New South Wales introduced universal newborn hearing tests in hospitals 20 years ago, it was one of few jurisdictions in the world to offer the service.
Now, the SWISH test (State Wide Infant Screening – Hearing), plays a key role in identifying children who need intervention for hearing loss.
Dr Sebastian Ranguis, an ear nose and throat specialist at Northern Beaches Hospital, says SWISH was implemented to enable hearing loss to be acted on early in a child’s life.
“In the first year of life, it’s really important for a child to be experiencing all those stimulations coming into the ears, so they can develop their language and understanding of the outside world,” Dr Ranguis explains.
“As the hearing is established, the brain develops the networks required to process those sounds. So, if we don’t get that happening at an early stage, we know that later down the track there’s a risk hearing loss is permanent.”
Testing is done across all public and private hospitals within a few days of birth, and is completely painless, Dr Ranguis says.
Electrodes, which detect electrical responses by the brain to sound, are applied to the baby’s head.
SWISH has become more accurate over time, Dr Ranguis says, but as an initial screening test it does not determine the extent of a child’s hearing loss. If a child fails the SWISH test, they will be referred to audiologists at one of Sydney’s specialist pediatric centres.
In Australia each year, one in a thousand children will be diagnosed with significant hearing loss after SWISH testing.
Options like Cochlear implants for children who are deaf are now ‘incredible’, Dr Ranguis says. And hearing aids for children with more moderate hearing loss now provide better quality of sound.
“SWISH has allowed children to live normal, productive lives in society and contribute in a way that they wouldn’t have been able to if they hadn’t been diagnosed at an early age,” Dr Ranguis says.