Pediatric Audiology Clinic

Contact: Lisa Mancl (lmancl@uw.edu)
Core Function: Clinical Services
Program: Clinical Training Unit (CTU)

The Pediatric Audiology Clinic has three primary goals:

1. To identify hearing loss as early in life as possible;
2. To provide access to hearing technology; and
3. To coordinate follow-up services for intervention, monitoring and ongoing evaluation.

Activities of this clinic include newborn hearing screening at the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC), diagnosis of hearing loss in the IHDD clinic, dispensing hearing technology (hearing aids, hearing assistance devices) to families of infants requiring them, and ongoing follow-up with clients served.

The Pediatric Audiology Clinic serves about 200 clients each year at IHDD. The average age of these clients is 2.4 years. About 25% of clients who are evaluated are identified as having a hearing impairment. Universal newborn hearing screening was implemented at UWMC in 2004 and has been a success, continuing to be well-received by both the nursing and medical staffs. This program is a collaborative effort between the Pediatric Audiology Clinic and the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at the UWMC. Data from this program are sent to the Washington State Early Hearing Detection, Diagnosis, and Intervention database for both neonatal screening outcomes and follow-up diagnostic testing.