Lay summary
Children in Counties Manukau (CM) have high rates of unrecognised hearing loss and ear disease. When their hearing is tested at age 4 during the B4 School Check (B4SC), children with persistent problems may already have significant developmental delays. Our team demonstrated the feasibility of administering a hearing screening protocol on 3-year-old children in CM early learning centres (ELC) in 2019 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2020.110510).
Funding is sought to support protocol development of a quasi-experimental study of DPOAE screening in 3-year-olds and developmental outcomes. ELCs will be randomly selected in CM to receive the screening intervention; B4SC outcomes from all CM children collected one year later. Outcomes will be compared between children who attended and did not attend the selected ELCs. Protocol development areas include engagement with kōhanga reo, methods to identify barriers to access, ELC sampling, sample size, data linkage. Our overarching goal is large-scale roll-out of the 3-year-old hearing screening protocol.