The 12th Australasian Newborn Hearing Screening Conference in Canberra next year will bring together leaders in the field and practitioners across many disciplines.
The theme of the conference, from 20 to 21 March 2025 at the Hotel Realm, will be futures and possibilities – challenges and opportunities.
The Australasian Newborn Hearing Screening Committee, and the Deafness Foundation are organising the conference.
Organisers said that since 2001, the conference had earned the reputation of being a mainstay event in the field of early identification and early intervention for children with hearing loss.
“The 2025 conference will once again bring together leaders in the field and practitioners across many disciplines including audiology, hearing screening, management, ENT, paediatrics, education of the deaf, speech pathology, and data administration; as well as a broad representation of people with lived experience, including parents of children with hearing loss,” they said.
“It offers an exciting chance for delegates to engage, connect, and exchange information and ideas on early hearing screening, childhood hearing loss, consumer and community programs, research, diagnostics, digital platforms, lessons learned, and much more.”
They said that since 2001 the conference had served to showcase best practice in newborn hearing screening and related services. It had also played an important role in the development and improvement of such programs across Australia and New Zealand.
The inaugural conference gave rise to the National Consensus Statement on Newborn Hearing Screening which was a significant part of the lobbying effort to introduce programs of Universal Newborn Hearing Screening in Australia.
The conference continues to play a role in ensuring that standards of coverage and standards of quality in the delivery of screening and associated services around Australasia are maintained and continuously improved, they added.
