Universal neonatal hearing screening: to screen or not to screen.

Universal neonatal hearing screening has been a long time coming. The goals of neonatal screening are to accurately identify babies with hearing loss, and to rehabilitate those identified as early as possible. Behavioural screening of neonates is not accurate enough. The Crib-o-gram records a neonate’s response and movements to sound as he or she lies quietly in the crib. Unfortunately, the false-positive rate is unacceptably high and the procedure has been abandoned.