The Colorado Infant Hearing Program:

This Colorado Roadmap for Families section of the Colorado Families for Hands & Voices web site has been built to augment the printable worksheet that has been developed and customized for each birthing hospital in Colorado.

The Roadmaps were created to serve as a safety net for families to ensure that babies could receive timely screening and follow up care for hearing loss. Families we spoke to were not aware of the "screen by one month, diagnose by three months, and enter intervention before six months of age" guidelines set by the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) system.  The earlier a baby is diagnosed, the better off he or she is for optimal development.

The Roadmap is our attempt at getting the right information to the right people at just the right time

Each local community in Colorado has a team of people including parents of children with hearing loss and professionals, audiologists, nurses, and more who developed these Roadmaps.  Each Roadmap contains customized information for every region in Colorado.  This worksheet is available at your hospital as well as downloadable on our web site. [ Download your Roadmaps Here ].

Parents will find on the second page of each roadmap a list of audiologists who have the expertise and equipment to assess infants, a regional CoHear who meets with all families with babies from birth to age three with hearing loss, and regional contacts for Hands & Voices, early interventionists, a regional Audiology consultant working for the state EHDI program, and the local Healthcare Program for Children with Special Needs team leader. The Roadmaps are also available in Spanish.

We hope the Roadmaps will:

• Arm families with the knowledge of “next steps” following a referral on the hearing screen and/or diagnosis of hearing loss;
• Help families get the support they need well before the one, three and six month EHDI guidelines;
• Keep babies safe from the risks of unnecessary sedation for diagnostic hearing testing by using natural sleep before three months of age;
• Encourage an ongoing discussion of hearing screening at birth as well as throughout a child's developing years.

* Graphics for the Roadmap were adapted from original artwork developed by the Provincial Health Services Authority.