The St. Louis Children’s Hospital mobile hearing and speech clinic provides pediatric hearing and speech services to children in need. The mobile unit serves children from birth to 21 years old who require audiologic follow-up after failed or missed hearing screenings, or when hearing concerns are noted.
In conjunction with the National and State Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Center, the mobile clinic travels across the region to provide newborn hearing screenings by 1 month of age, a hearing loss diagnosis by 3 months of age and hearing loss intervention by 6 months of age.
The 44-foot-long mobile unit operates year-round, Monday through Friday, and travels throughout a two-hour radius of St. Louis. The unit contains three patient areas: a multipurpose room; a patient intake and hearing device programming area; and a double-walled sound booth. A wheelchair lift provides full accessibility for all patients.
All services are provided by pediatric audiologists and speech language pathologists from St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
The mobile hearing and speech clinic provides convenient access to:
- Otoscopy, otoacoustic emission testing and tympanometry
- Non-sedated screening and diagnostic Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) measures
- Behavioral hearing tests via pure-tone audiometry for patients 6 months and older
- Rehabilitative care for children with hearing loss
- Fitting and maintenance of hearing aids, bone conduction systems, cochlear implants, FM/DM systems and assistive devices
- Speech and language evaluation and therapy (including spoken language, American Sign Language, Total Communication and more)
- Coordinated audiologic care to support physician practices or educational institutions
The mobile unit provides patients who wouldn’t have access to pediatric audiology services an option closer to home.
Children’s Hospital is partnering with other hospitals, private medical practices, schools, therapists and state entities to provide hearing health support to a wide variety of communities. Groups interested in scheduling a visit from the mobile unit can contact Children’s Hospital supervisor of audiology and cochlear implants Jamie Cadieux, AuD, at 314.454.2503 or [email protected].
