The importance of early home-based guidance (EHBG) for hearing-impaired children and their families in Flanders

This state-of-the-art report describes the rationale and evidence for family-centred early intervention after newborn hearing screening (NHS). More specifically, we document the organisation and practice of early home-based guidance (EHBG) in Flanders, as well as the new challenges and paradigm shifts induced by NHS. Since the introduction of NHS, the number of participants with bilateral hearing loss entering one of the five EHBG centres in Flanders (one in each of the region's provinces) before the age of twelve months has doubled. About half of the screened population receive EHBG and about 80% of them do so before the age of six months. However, there is enormous variation between the different provinces and this has still to be clarified.