ACIA CEU Courses Live Webinars

In this session, Dr. Dana Suskind discusses how artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other emerging technologies can be used to better understand and, thus, optimize the role that parents play in promoting early language and cognitive development in children with hearing loss and children with typical hearing. Dr. Suskind covers the existing literature on foundational brain development and language skill acquisition, with an emphasis on the crucial role that parents and caregivers play in this process. She also identifies gaps in our collective knowledge on this topic and explains how technology can help fill those gaps. Finally, she shares several examples of tools being developed at the University of Chicago's TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health that will help individual parents boost their children’s foundational development—and also allow society to better support all parents in this essential task.

Permanent hearing loss affects 2-3 per 1,000 newborns. When not identified early in life, children who are deaf or hard of hearing lag behind their peers in language, social, and cognitive development, fail more frequently in school, and have difficulty being successfully employed. Family engagement has been critical in the development of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) that have made it possible for most children who are deaf or hard of hearing to develop similarly to their peers with typical hearing. However, a number of challenges and opportunities for improvement remain. This presentation summarizes the history of newborn hearing screening, describes the current status, and discusses some of the important challenges and emerging issues that could be addressed to further improve early identification of childhood hearing loss. Lessons learned over the past decades, recent advances based on research and policy initiatives, and the crucial role of families will be used to highlight how various stakeholders (e.g., health care providers, public health officials, parents, and educators) can continue to improve outcomes for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

This course covers best practices for evaluating adult cochlear implant (CI) single-sided deafness (SSD) candidates, including the insurance elements that need to be considered with this population. Additionally, the outcomes and benefits of the technology with this population are discussed.

This course focuses on referral, candidacy, and the evaluation process for cochlear implantation (CI) in children with single-sided deafness (SSD). Expected outcomes and factors that could influence performance in this population are discussed.