Today’s universal newborn hearing screening programs can identify significant hearing impairment in children soon after birth. Once a hearing loss is identified, the process of rehabilitation can begin.

It’s now possible to deliver near-normal hearing through a range of hearing devices, so that children with hearing loss can develop normal speech and language skills in a mainstream school setting.

Rehabilitation can involve:

• Fitting of hearing aids
• Surgical cochlear implantation
• A variety of assistive listening devices to make hearing easier

At Duke, we strive to provide excellent medical care, integrating our services with those of each child’s pediatrician and other educational and health care providers.

Treatments

Our specialists evaluate and treat children from infancy through age 18. Working as a team, we:

• Accurately characterize the degree and type of hearing loss
• Monitor for progression of hearing loss
• Identify treatable causes of the loss and associated medical conditions
• Implement early hearing assistance programs such as hearing aids, FM units, and implantable hearing devices such as the Baha (bone anchored hearing device), and cochlear implants
• Work with local physicians, therapists, and school personnel to ensure that the child’s needs are met in educational and other settings
• Carefully follow the child’s hearing and language development into and throughout the school years

Any child who has a severe to profound hearing loss and does not make adequate progress with hearing aid amplification may be evaluated for cochlear implantation.

This decision is made as soon as possible to optimize auditory input in the early years of developing speech and language skills. When cochlear implants are warranted, our otolaryngologists provide expertise in the surgical implantation of these devices.

Team Approach

The Duke Pediatric Sensorineural Hearing Loss and Cochlear Implant Clinic cares for children with hearing loss related to inner ear disorders, congenital problems, and neurological conditions.

We treat appropriate candidate patients with hearing aids and cochlear implants as their first steps toward hearing rehabilitation.

The clinic team consists of several specialists:

• Otolaryngologists (otologists and pediatric otolaryngologists) with medical and surgical expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of ear disease in children
• Audiologists and cochlear implant audiologists with expertise in diagnosis and management of pediatric hearing loss

• Speech/language pathologists with expertise in speech and language development of the hearing-impaired child

• Associated medical specialists in medical genetics, developmental pediatrics, child psychology, and other specialties

The clinic is part of Duke Children’s Hospital and Health Center, a facility designed especially for coordinating the care of children who have many health needs.

Physicians

Physicians offering this service include:

• Evans, Adele K.
• Kaylie, David M.
• Tucci, Debara L.

Locations

This service is available at:

• Duke Children's Hospital & Health Center
  2301 Erwin Road, Durham, NC 27710
• Duke Otolaryngology of Raleigh
  Duke Medicine Plaza 3480 Wake Forest Road, Suite 404, Raleigh, NC 27609
• Duke Speech Pathology and Audiology
  Duke Clinic 1I, 200 Trent Drive, Durham, NC 27710