Early screening of newborns for communication disorders advocated

Former director of All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) N. Jayaram on Monday said newborns have to be screened for a number of developmental disorders since they remain at high risk of death, stunting, developmental delay, and communication disorders. 

Former director of All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) N. Jayaram on Monday said newborns have to be screened for a number of developmental disorders since they remain at high risk of death, stunting, developmental delay, and communication disorders. 

“Early identification and intervention means that we are on the path to create a life akin to ours for some or most of these children. The cost of screening/identifying a baby with disability would be much lesser than the cost of managing the child later in his/her life. Therefore, early identification programs are a necessity,” advised Mr. Jayaram, who is professor and Head, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, SDAUHER, Kolar.

In his keynote address on the topic ‘Current status of screening for speech, language and hearing disorders in paediatric population in India and the path ahead’ at the national seminar on ‘Early identification, and intervention of communication disorders in children’ (an RCI-CRE approved programme), at AIISH here, Mr. Jayaram, quoting UNICEF statistics, said India witnesses 73,787 births per day (26.932 million per year).

Though the infant mortality is also very high, everyday addition to the paediatric population still is significantly high. More importantly, nearly 3.5 million babies in India are born too early, 1.7 million babies are born with birth defects, and one million newborns are discharged each year from Special New-born Care Units. These newborns remain at high risk of death, stunting, developmental delay, and communication disorders, he explained.

He said the equipment, manpower, and the logistics requirement to screen 26.932 million children every year is mind-boggling. Irrespective of the cost associated, all babies need to be screened. “There is no second thinking on that issue, but we need to rethink our approach,” he felt.

He mentioned that non-availability of trained personnel in adequate numbers, gargantuan size of the population to be screened, geographical vastness for coverage, lack of instrumentation, poor awareness/education of the people, administrative apathy, and lack of policy backup are some of the issues that contribute to the complexity of the issue.

“The approaches that we are following for identification of communication disorders all these days are pedestrian and uneconomical. We need to think of alternate approaches, and in this direction, a search for biochemical indicators may turn out to be a more effective approach. However, I am aware that finding biomarkers is not an easy thing. It is time consuming, requires major and multipronged research,” said Mr. Jayaram.