Improving Clinical Care of Children with Hearing Impairment
The Ear and Hearing Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is staffed by an interdisciplinary group of clinicians and researchers dedicated to diagnosing and treating patients with hearing loss.
The Ear and Hearing Center is a unique collaboration between the Division of Otolaryngology, the Division of Audiology and the Division of Human Genetics. We use state-of-the-art molecular genetic testing combined with clinically relevant result interpretation.
Our Mission
The mission of the Ear and Hearing Center is:
- To improve the care and quality of life for children with hearing impairment by providing optimal and innovative medical and surgical management.
- To advance our understanding of the biological basis for normal hearing and deafness through cutting-edge molecular research
As many as one out of every 2,000 children born in the United States will demonstrate a moderate or worse hearing loss, making congenital hearing loss one of the most common birth defects in the U.S.
In Ohio alone, 450 to 500 children will be born each year with such a handicapping hearing loss. Of these congenitally deaf children, approximately 50 percent will have a genetic / hereditary basis to their deafness. Therefore, the study of genes involved in hearing and deafness is crucial to our understanding and care of children with handicapping hearing loss.
