TOPLINE

Among infants born extremely premature, not passing newborn hearing screening assessments was associated with lower language and cognitive scores at 2 years later.

METHODOLOGY

• Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from infants between 2012 and 2021 born at 22-26 weeks’ gestation or with a birth weight of 401-1000 g.
• A little over 4800 children (mean gestational age, 24.8 weeks; 51% boys) who completed newborn hearing screening assessments before discharge and standardized neurodevelopmental follow-up around 2 years later were included in the analytic cohort; 690 did not pass the assessments and 4201 did.
• The primary outcomes were language scores assessed at 22-26 months’ corrected age.
• The secondary outcomes comprised behavioral issues reported by the caregiver.

TAKEAWAY

• Infants who did not pass the newborn hearing screening assessments had lower language scores (adjusted mean difference [aMD], -2.6; 95% CI, -4.1 to -1.1) and cognitive scores (aMD, -2.4; 95% CI, -3.7 to -1.1) than those who passed.
• Not passing screening assessments was associated with higher odds of language scores of less than 85 (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1-1.7) and cognitive scores of less than 85 (aOR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1-1.7).

IN PRACTICE

“A newborn hearing screening result of ‘did not pass’ should be layered onto existing prematurity-based follow-up pathways as a marker for heightened language and cognitive monitoring,” the researchers wrote.

SOURCE

The study was led by Katsuaki Kojima, MD, PhD, MPH, of the Division of Neonatology and Pulmonary Medicine at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati. It was published online on July 20, 2026, in The Journal of Pediatrics.

LIMITATIONS

Protocols used for screening varied across centers and over time, and modality and ear-specific data were available only for later birth years. Confirmatory diagnostic testing was incomplete, and longitudinal outpatient audiology data were not available.

DISCLOSURES

This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, with infrastructure support provided by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. One author received support from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and reported providing consulting services to Otsuka Pharmaceutical Factory. Another author reported providing consulting services to ReAlta Life Sciences and Imperial College London.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.