The development of speaking and language ability in infants improves quickly in the first few months of life. Congenital hearing loss negatively affects children’s speech, language, and social and cognitive ability. A newborn hearing screening program is very important for the early diagnosis of congenital hearing loss. This study reports results of the newborn hearing screening of 5,485 newborns born between March 1998-December 2003 in Hacettepe University Hospital. This hearing screening was performed in three steps using the TEOAE (Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions). Method in the first step, all newborn infants were evaluated before discharge. Of these, 5,333 (97.2%) infants were found to have normal hearing; 141 (2.5%) infants were not brought to followup. Eleven (0.20%) infants were found to have bilateral severe sensorineural hearing loss. The rate of hearing loss determined in this study is similar to that reported in the literature.

Keywords: yenidoğan, işitme kaybı, işitme taraması, newborn, hearing loss, hearing screening