Pediatric Audiology Services
The UNC Hospitals Pediatric Audiology Team serves infants and young children with suspected or confirmed hearing loss, under the direction of Caitlin Sapp, AuD, PhD.
Pediatric Audiology provides necessary screening, diagnostic, and interventional audiology services for children from birth to age 21 with a wide range of hearing disorders. We also care for many children who need a baseline hearing evaluation as part of a global evaluation for language or developmental issues.
Our team offers comprehensive, evidence-based pediatric audiology care that is tailored to meet the needs of all children, including those with complex medical needs.
Pediatric Audiology works closely with the UNC Hospitals Infant Hearing Screening Program to identify and diagnose hearing loss within the first weeks of life. For NICU infants, who may be at increased risk for early hearing loss, a UNC pediatric audiologist will complete the newborn hearing screening and facilitate next steps through hands on case management. Any infant who fails the newborn hearing screening will receive follow up care in one of our outpatient clinics for in-depth diagnostic testing, medical evaluation and treatment by a pediatric audiologist and a UNC Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) physician. Our team sees infants and young children referred from across the state.
A Team Effort
Pediatric audiologists are only one piece of the management team for many children with hearing loss. We work as part of interdisciplinary care teams across the UNC Health network including NICU follow up with the Special Infant Care Clinic, inpatient care teams in the UNC Children’s Hospital, and will be part of the upcoming launch of the Trisomy 21 Clinic at UNC. In 2023, our team also partnered with the Children’s Cochlear Implant Center under the UNC School of Medicine on the launch of the UNC Mobile Speech and Hearing Clinic to bring high-quality pediatric audiology and auditory verbal therapy to other parts of North Carolina.
Many of our audiology patients are co-scheduled to receive care with one of our UNC ENT physicians at the time of their audiology evaluation. Audiologists approach hearing from a functional perspective: are children hearing the sounds needed for language and learning? By co-scheduling with ENT, our patients receive the medical perspective on hearing as well and may be more able to take needed steps toward intervention.
Parent and Family Resources for Early Hearing Loss
The right information at the right time
After diagnosing hearing loss, the UNC Pediatric Audiology team will work with your family to ensure that your child receives the needed follow up referrals to build an intervention team. In North Carolina, NC Beginnings provides impartial informational counseling and parent-to-parent support in partnership with our state early hearing detection and intervention program. Children with any level of hearing loss under age 3 years qualify for evaluation by local early intervention agencies. High-quality early intervention, alongside high-quality audiology care, ensures that children with hearing loss have access to important auditory information during the early, critical interval for listening and language development.
Ensuring access
Confirming the presence of hearing loss is only the first step to help make sure your child can thrive. Our goal is for children with hearing loss to receive their hearing technology with the quickest possible turnround; and we work to prevent financial barriers from standing in the way. In addition to most private health insurance plans, UNC Pediatric Audiology participates in all state Medicaid plans for pediatric hearing aids and the CCCDP state grant program to fund hearing aids and other hearing devices for children with hearing loss in North Carolina. For children who do not qualify for Medicaid or other state programs but have financial need, our team will work to identify if other donor-supported sources for hearing aid technology may be an option.
Clinical Education in Pediatric Audiology
The specialized pediatric audiology skills that set our care apart don’t happen by accident. Our team is committed to the clinical education of audiology students at all stages of their training. We welcome undergraduate interns, clinical trainees from Audiology doctoral programs, and three full-time audiology externs. More information about clinical education opportunities in our pediatric audiology program can be found under the Rehabilitation Therapies program.
Our Services
- Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) Evaluation – under natural sleep for infants under age 4 months and under sedation for older children where necessary
- Age-appropriate Behavioral Hearing Evaluations
- Visual Reinforcement Audiometry (two-tester)
- Conditioned Play Audiometry (two-tester)
- Conventional Audiometry
- Otoacoustic emissions (OAE)
- Tympanometry
- Hearing Aids - Evaluation, fitting and hearing aid checks
- Bone Conduction Devices - Evaluation, fitting and device check
- Cochlear Implants – Evaluation for cochlear implant candidacy and care coordination alongside our colleagues at the Children’s Cochlear Implant Center at UNC
- Newborn Hearing Screenings
Coordinated Care
Successful management of early hearing loss requires a coordinated approach between audiology, ENT physicians, and early interventionists such as speech language pathologists. Our patients benefit from the patient-centered care delivered at UNC and the seamless experience for children with all levels of hearing loss. UNC Hospitals Pediatric Audiology staff work closely with the audiologists and speech language pathologists at the Children’s Cochlear Implant Center at UNC for children who show limited benefit from hearing aids, whose hearing loss progresses over time, or who are successful pediatric hearing aid users but need additional speech and language services from their specialized team.
Preparing for Your Child’s Visit
There are many reasons your child might need a hearing test. They might not have passed a newborn hearing check at the hospital, or they might be starting speech therapy soon. Some kids we see also have medical conditions that can affect their hearing. No matter the reason, we’re here to help you find answers and make a plan for their success. Our team works with kids of all ages, from newborn infants to teens and young adults with special healthcare needs. We know how to your child feel safe and comfortable during a full hearing evaluation.
For Infants (under 4 months)
Diagnostic testing for young infants uses an auditory brainstem response (ABR) to tell us important information about their hearing, all while they are asleep!
The ABR is only successful when infants sleep soundly throughout the test. Please do what you can to bring your baby to the appointment tired and hungry (unless medically contraindicated). If possible, keep your baby awake during the car ride to the appointment. At the clinic, your Audiologist will take your family to a room to prepare for the test. We will lightly scrub several spots on the forehead and earlobes. We will apply four small sticker sensors to those spots and place earphones in both ears. You will then have time to feed your baby and allow them to fall asleep. We can conduct the test with the baby asleep in a parent’s arms, in a carrier seat, or in a baby swing (we have one onsite).
Once your baby is asleep, the Audiologist will present low, medium, and higher-pitched sounds to each ear. We will be continuously measuring which sounds your baby can or cannot hear. At the end, the Audiologist will review the test results and discuss next steps.
Learn more about our natural sleep Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) test.
For Older Children
Our team is skilled at making testing fun and putting our patients at ease! Our clinics are kid friendly, and each testing space is full of toys, games and even bubbles to put your child in a happy, fun and cooperative mood. We even have a few tricks (along with great technology) that allow us to get an accurate understanding of our youngest patients and our sensitive, kind-hearted kids who get easily overwhelmed in the doctor’s office. At the end, the Audiologist will review the test results and discuss next steps.
