INFANTS' HEARING TESTED NEWLY MANDATED SCREENING ALLOWS EARLY INTERVENTION.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

VAN NUYS - Abdullahhussein Ismail Kabalaki will hear lullabies from his mother and gentle words from his father.

The baby boy, born last week at Northridge Hospital Medical Center's Sherman Way Campus, passed the latest in newborn screening - a brain-wave hearing test.

Known as the auditory brain stem evoked response, the $35,000 machine sends soft sounds to a baby's ears, and the brain response is then passed via electrodes into a laptop computer for hearing analysis.

``I think it's great,'' said his mother, Fatiha Bouaouda, 28, of Reseda, eyeing the pediatrician cradling her son's head sprouting wires. ``The baby is healthy; that is wonderful.''

The free health test given to all Northridge Hospital newborns - and by law administered to all babies throughout the state beginning in 2002 - instantly detects hearing loss.

That's a benefit to babies, whose parents may not suspect their children have severe hearing problems until 14 months, or moderate hearing loss until 6 years old - too late for effective intervention and treatment.

``This is a screenable, treatable condition,'' said Dr. Pejman Salimpour, founder and chief of Northridge Hospital's Sherman Way pediatric unit, the first in the San Fernando Valley to routinely test all infants with the new machine.

``The most important thing is that early intervention helps prevent developmental delay and cognitive deficits in children if diagnosis is made in three months and intervention in six months,'' he said. ``With hearing aids, speech and language therapy, normal speech can be achieved in these children by the time they're 3 years old.''

Other Valley hospitals, such as Valley Presbyterian and Tarzana hospitals, administer the test on an as-needed basis.

Severe loss of hearing is the most common congenital defect and affects between one and three newborns out of a thousand, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has endorsed universal hearing tests for all newborns. Of those, half go undetected until too late.

Of the more than 1,500 newborns screened for hearing at Northridge since June, hospital officials say, two were found with severe hearing loss.

``The most important thing,'' Salimpour added, ``is that parents can see in five minutes that the baby they've waited for for nine months can hear.''

Bouaouda, consequently, sees a great future for her son. ``I'd love for him to be a doctor,'' she said.

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Dr. Pejman Salimpour watches a hearing test given to newborn Abdullahhussein Ismail Kabalaki at Northridge Hospital Medical Center's Sherman Way campus.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer