A brand new Sleeping Baby Hearing Test app developed by my colleague and friend, Dr. Eric Kraus, can potentially save the hearing, speech and intellectual development of babies worldwide.
I am very proud and pleased to share a brand new innovation developed by my colleague and friend, Eric Kraus, MD, that can potentially save the hearing, speech and intellectual development of babies worldwide. Dr. Kraus advanced the work already done in the early 2000s by my mentor, Dr. Bill House, on creating a hearing screen to test a newborn’s hearing.
Hearing loss is the most common birth defect in the world and in the U.S., one in six babies will be born with it. Detecting hearing impairment in newborns is so critical that hospitals nationwide routinely administer Universal Newborn Hearing Screens to all babies born in their facility. But the tests are not always administered properly—by qualified professionals—and parents who are told the screening is inconclusive or borderline are told to bring their baby back in two weeks. Only 45 percent do.
Babies with undetected hearing loss in the first two years of life usually remain deaf, seldom learn to speak or develop abstract thinking ability, and rarely develop their full intellectual capacity. Dr. House was so motivated by this reality, he developed the first newborn hearing screen in the 1990s and distributed it to pediatricians for use in their offices. It never caught on and went underutilized. A second attempt at putting the screening online also failed to catch on because it was too complex and cumbersome.
Shortly before Dr. House passed in December 2013, he called Dr. Kraus and that cell phone call created an epiphany: Dr. Kraus realized afterward, in looking at his iPhone, that creating an app for the screening would make it available to anyone with a smartphone. He found a programmer and acoustic engineer to help him develop the app and eight months later, submitted it to Apple for consideration. It was approved in seven days—a process that normally takes six months. Best of all, the app is free.
To view a video of Dr. Kraus talking about the need for, and development of, the Sleeping Baby Hearing Screen, click here. While the app is only available currently for iPhones, an Android version is in development and will be available soon.
Congratulations to Dr. Kraus for advancing the work of one of our pioneers, Dr. William F. House, for the betterment of children worldwide.