Strategic Analysis of Family Support in EHDI Systems

Abstract

Because newborn hearing screening has become the standard of care in the United States, every state has established an early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) program responsible for establishing, maintaining, and improving the system of services needed to serve children with hearing loss and their families. While significant developments have occurred in the last 20 years, challenges to newborn hearing screening, follow up, and early intervention still exist. In 2009, the National Center for Hearing and Assessment Management (NCHAM) initiated a national strategic planning activity to help EHDI program coordinators identify ways to improve their programs through the use of a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis framework. A SWOT analysis, and subsequent threats, opportunities, weaknesses, and strengths (TOWS) matrix analysis, are commonly used methods of strategic planning. This article summarizes the history and status of EHDI programs to provide a context for the strategic planning process, and explains the methodology used in completing the SWOT analysis. 2. Audiological Evaluation This EHDI area covers all aspects of audiological evaluations and documentation. 3. Early Intervention This EHDI area covers all aspects of early intervention including, but not limited to, Part C and non-Part C communication options and technology options. 4. Medical Homes/ Medical Professionals This EHDI area includes the medical home and all medical professionals responsible for the continuity of care for children who have or are at-risk for hearing loss. 5. Loss to Follow-Up This EHDI area includes all issues related to loss to followup during the EHDI process (screening to identification to intervention). 6. Family Support This EHDI area includes all aspects of family support services as well as both educational materials and services that are culturally and linguistically sensitive as well as readily available. Continued Strategic Planning for EHDI Programs The results of these analyses suggest concrete ways in which the various components of an EHDI system can be improved by using opportunities to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses, using strengths to reduce threats, and finding ways to reduce the threats to identified weaknesses. History and Status of EHDI Programs Many people have worked to reduce the age at which children with congenital hearing loss are identified since Ewing and Ewing (1944) called attention to the issue almost 70 years ago. For example, following the pioneering work EHDI Area Description 7. Periodic Early Childhood Hearing Screening This EHDI area includes all aspects of screening for hearing loss in children who passed their initial hearing screening but are at-risk for hearing loss, have an identified diagnosis that is associated with hearing loss, or are being screened to find late-onset hearing loss. 8. Professional Development This EHDI area represents all education and professional development for individuals who provide services related to universal ne...

Presa in carico precoce del bambino ipoacusico

“…The role of parents considerably affects the success of rehabilitation. 18 - 19 The quality and quantity of maternal stimulation influence the linguistic abilities reached by small children with cochlear implants: for this reason, the parent should know how to relate with the child since the very first years of life, by assuming the role of scaffolder in development 5 - 9 . An external opportunity favouring the involvement of the caregivers in the rehabilitation project is represented by the possibility to participate in the logopaedic sessions so as to observe directly the perceptive and communicative strategies used by the speech therapist to interact with the child.…”

Rendere competente la famiglia nei primi mesi successivi all’identificazione di una ipoacusia del figlio

“…The responses obtained were reviewed by the specialists responsible for this area. To generate recommendations from the SWOT analysis, a TOWS matrix was used to match the external threats and opportunities with internal weaknesses and strengths of the organization or programme 11 12 . The detailed description of the SWOT and TOWS matrix analysis procedure can be found elsewhere in this issue.…”

Relevance of the International Classification of Functioning, Health and Disability: Children & Youth Version in Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Programs

“…The future for their newborn child feels uncertain and unpredictable and parents express the need for timely access to understandable information and support that changes over time as their child grows. [19][20][21][22][23] These parents need to be provided with the resources and opportunities to support the positive development of their child to achieve whatever vision they have, regardless of disability and body function. 24 Families constitute the most influential microsystem (i.e., all the settings in which a child personally interacts and is influenced) of children, especially in the early years.…”