What's the discovery or innovation?

Our innovations include:

• One of the world’s first state-wide screening programs to detect congenital hearing loss - The Victorian Infant Hearing Screening Program - which screens newborns and detects impairment an average eight months earlier than those screened because of risk factors.
• The world’s largest collection of health information from hearing-impaired children, VicCHILD, aimed at unlocking the secrets of hearing loss.
• A trial using saliva swabs to detect the leading infectious cause of hearing impairment in babies–congenital cytomegalovirus.

How is it changing children’s lives?

Our world-leading research to understand causes, effects, and ways to support children results in improved detection and treatment.

Screening enables babies with moderate, severe, or profound hearing loss to receive the best possible care, including early diagnosis and interventions such as hearing devices, cochlear implants, speech therapy and/or sign language.

Goals include helping every child with hearing loss reach their full language and developmental potential. We hope that one day our work can stop hearing loss from progressing or even reverse it.

More resources

• Hearing loss research
• HearS-cCMV Project