A Study on the Differential Diagnostic Model for Newborn Hearing Loss Screening

Authors: Chun-Lang Chang

Abstract:

According to the statistics, the prevalence of congenital hearing loss in Taiwan is approximately six thousandths; furthermore, one thousandths of infants have severe hearing impairment. Hearing ability during infancy has significant impact in the development of children-s oral expressions, language maturity, cognitive performance, education ability and social behaviors in the future. Although most children born with hearing impairment have sensorineural hearing loss, almost every child more or less still retains some residual hearing. If provided with a hearing aid or cochlear implant (a bionic ear) timely in addition to hearing speech training, even severely hearing-impaired children can still learn to talk. On the other hand, those who failed to be diagnosed and thus unable to begin hearing and speech rehabilitations on a timely manner might lose an important opportunity to live a complete and healthy life. Eventually, the lack of hearing and speaking ability will affect the development of both mental and physical functions, intelligence, and social adaptability. Not only will this problem result in an irreparable regret to the hearing-impaired child for the life time, but also create a heavy burden for the family and society. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a set of computer-assisted predictive model that can accurately detect and help diagnose newborn hearing loss so that early interventions can be provided timely to eliminate waste of medical resources. This study uses information from the neonatal database of the case hospital as the subjects, adopting two different analysis methods of using support vector machine (SVM) for model predictions and using logistic regression to conduct factor screening prior to model predictions in SVM to examine the results. The results indicate that prediction accuracy is as high as 96.43% when the factors are screened and selected through logistic regression. Hence, the model constructed in this study will have real help in clinical diagnosis for the physicians and actually beneficial to the early interventions of newborn hearing impairment.

Keywords: Data mining, Hearing impairment, Logistic regression analysis, Support vector machines

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1332874

References:

[1] Northern, J. L., & Hayes, D. H. (1994), "Universal screening for infant hearing impairment: necessary, beneficial and justifiable", Audiology Today, vol. 6, pp.10-13.
[2] Carney, A. E.,& Moeller, M. P. (1998), "Treatment efficacy: Hearing loss in children", Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, vol. 41, pp. 61-84.
[3] Northern, J. L., & Downs, M. P. (2002), Hearing in children (5th ed). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins., Philadelphia.
[4] Stilianos E. and Anestis Psifidis. and C. Joseph Chang. and Charles M. Stiern berg.(1997). "Risk Factors Associated With Hearing Loss in Neonates", American Journal of Otolaryngology, vol.18. pp.90-93
[5] Stilianos E. and Ioannis Skoulas. and Diane Phillips. and C. Y. Joseph Chang.(2002). "Risk Factors for Hearing Loss in Neonates: A Prospective Study," American Journal of Otolaryngology, vol.23. pp.133-137.
[6] Yoshinaga-Itano, C. (1999), "Benefits of early intervention for children with hearing Loss", Otolaryngologic Clinics of North America, vol. 32, pp. 1089-1102.
[7] Down, M.P., & Yoshinaga-Itano, C. (1999). "The efficacy of early identification and intervention for children with hearing impairment", Pediatric Clinics of North America, vol. 46(1), pp. 79-87.
[8] Yoshinaga-Itano, C., Sedey, A. L., Coulter, D. K., & Mehl, A. L. (1998) "Language of early- and later-identified children with hearing loss", Pediatrics, vol. 102(5), pp. 1161-1171
[9] Ross, M. (1990). "Implications of delay in detection and management of deafness", Volta Review, vol. 92, pp. 69-79.
[10] Kral, Hartmann, Tillein, Held & Klinke.( 2002). Hearing after congenital deafness: central auditory plasticity and sensory deprivation, Cerebral cortex, USA.
[11] Rosemary, C. (1998). "Further support for the benefits of early identification", Volta Review, vol. 100(5), pp. 32-53.