Search

This paper explores the leadership of ECEC principals in the private sector in Chile, which is barely investigated worldwide. In Chile,10% of children attending ECEC are enrolled in private centres. Following a tradition of qualitative research, a multiple case study was carried out, allowing the exploration of four private ECEC settings. Different techniques were used for data collection: semi-structured interviews with principals, ECEC teachers, teaching assistants, and parents. In addition, a shadowing technique was used to observe principals in their daily activities. Findings show three types of leadership practices: pedagogical leadership, leadership distribution and leadership practices with families, in addition to a note about resource autonomy. All those practices were highly influenced by the nurseries' ownership status. Where principals were the owners of the nursery, much more autonomy for decision-making and resources was observed, together with a focus on pedagogical leadership. On this basis, we conclude that in the cases where the principals are not the nurseries' owners, it is essential to promote spaces to lead the pedagogical experiences children will have and to take decisions. Also, parents and the community must have opportunities to reflect collaboratively about education, which is also a task better promoted by the principal through fostering a shared vision in the nursery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Val-de-Marne department, health check-ups for children in the middle section of nursery school are carried out by the Maternal and Child Protection Service, and allow for the early detection of possible anomalies. Language is evaluated using the ERTL-4 test, which helps to identify a language disorder. Using data collected from health check-ups, the objective of our work was to compare the rates of children referred for language disorder assessment between the academic years 2018–2019 and 2021–2022 as well as the associated risk factors. Children who underwent a health check-up during 2018–2019 and 2021–2022 were included. After a descriptive analysis, a logistic regression model was constructed with referral or no referral for a language disorder as a function of the academic year and possible risk or protective factors. Among the 36,816 health check-ups analyzed, the proportion of children referred for language disorder check-ups increased significantly by 3.3 % (p < 0.001). The factors associated with this were male gender ([odds ratio] OR = 1.60, p < 2.2e-16) and schooling in a priority education network (REP), (OR = 1.54, p < 2.2e-16) or REP+ (OR = 2.76, p < 2.2e-16). An association with other disorders was identified (p < 2.2e-16). This study shows that the proportion of children referred for language disorders has increased between the 2 academic years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how eight London nurseries examined whether better use of bicycles would strengthen children's physical activity as a step to reducing child obesity. The nurseries are part of a social enterprise which offers one-third of the 4200 nursery places to children from poor and disadvantaged families/communities where rates of child obesity are high and increasing. The research was instigated because the nurseries built a partnership with Bikeworks which provided free bikes and staff wanted to ensure they were using them effectively to benefit children. Parents were involved but also asked a specific question about interest in a bike lending scheme. The paper concluded that staff became more observant of how they could enhance their practice using bikes to support children's physical and sociolinguistic development. It heightened the importance of observation of the children but also in identifying barriers such as poor cycling surface and state of bike repairs. Parents considered bikes to be a key part of their children's nursery life especially extending physical skills but were divided evenly about the value of introducing a bike lending scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on a medium-scale Jamaican study, The Early Interactions Project, which measured environmental quality in 42 childcare facilities in Jamaica using Infant and Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS-3). One of the overarching goals of the project was to quantitatively measure programme quality with the goal of providing recommendations for the improvement of global process quality within the participating centres. These findings are then discussed relative to their implications for practices employed within childcare centres. The findings indicate that nursery settings are underperforming across all indicators of quality as measured by the ITERS-3 scale. This finding illuminates the need for increased access to professional development opportunities for nursery staff, improved financial capacities for nursery facilities and improved oversight of the sector catering to children in the 0–3 age cohort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The present research aimed to review the qualitative aspects of communication between children and their caregivers. We focused on the presence of quality indicators, on the strategies we encounter in influencing language acquisition in the interaction between children and early childhood educators. Methods: We examined the diversity, awareness and efficiency with which educators use communication tools and techniques in various preschool education situations for children under 3 years of age. In the empirical survey of day-care interactions a questionnaire was based on the evaluation and observation of questionnaire responses. Results: The emotional and motivational basis of language acquisition is formed by the toddler's social inclinations and attachment needs, as well as social inclinations, with his environment playing a prominent role in changing these processes. Discussion: These interactions provide a framework for language acquisition, where in the classic case language acquisition is not guided, but takes place through everyday situations, through participation in authentic communication situations. The axiom is that language skills develop in language use. Limitations: The questionnaire was validly completed by 60 people. The data collection concentrated on the region of southern and northern Transdanubia in Hungary. Although not in national terms, this offers the opportunity to evaluate and reflect on the situation at the regional level. Conclusions: The professional communication and competent language development activity of educators' results from the interplay of scientific-theoretical knowledge, implicit empirical knowledge, competence-oriented procedures [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, the standard of indoor climate in nursery school classrooms has not been established, and the control and maintenance of indoor climate in the classrooms are entrusted to individual childminders. Therefore, indoor climate in nursery school classrooms was measured to prepare fundamental information for proper environmental design and environmental control, considering infants' comfort and health. The climate of 0-year-old and 1-year-old children's rooms in 15 nursery schools located in mild climatic areas in Japan were measured in the summer and winter over four years. Consequently, a lower average temperature was found during winter at lower heights at which infants spend time and indoor air quality was found to be poor in both summer and winter due to a lower ventilation rate in some classrooms with a smaller area per infant compared to the minimum standards for child welfare institutions. One classroom with an average CO2 concentration of over 1500 ppm was found in both summer and winter due to less ventilation. Illumination less than 300 lx in one-third of the studied classrooms and high equivalent noise level in most classrooms were measured. The need for indoor environmental standards was indicated in terms of infants' comfort and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores childhood and material culture in the eighteenth century Holy Roman Empire. It details the material context of all social strata of society and reflects on the different possible "biographical" material surroundings (furniture, clothing, toys) from childbirth, the nursery, and school interiors to festivities within the yearly cycle, such as Christmas, as well as possible spaces of agency outdoors. The article draws on written, pictorial and threedimensional sources of childhood and analyzes whether we can indeed speak of children as consumers in the eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents qualitative research on the experience of facilitators and participants in work discussion groups in Greek nurseries. Work discussion groups offer a powerful mode of learning and development, not only in psychoanalytic oriented training but in educational settings in general, as they focus on the understanding of the emotional processes that underlie teaching and learning. Although there is evidence that provision of work discussion groups to teaching staff can have a far-reaching impact (i.e., they can help teachers manage the challenges of their work, reduce work-related stress, and promote the development of reflective practice), research on work discussion groups in early education settings is scarce. The present research aspires to contribute to this topic. Five facilitators and six nursery teachers who had participated for at least one year in work discussion groups run in Greek nurseries were interviewed on their experience. Their accounts were analysed using thematic analysis. The themes extracted from their accounts are compared and contrasted. The results demonstrate the generally positive experience from the work discussion groups in Greek nurseries, as reported by facilitators and teachers. The experience of being in a discussion group had an important impact on most nursery teachers, both on a professional and personal level. Suggestions for improvement of the experience, including the clear definition and safeguarding of the work discussion group's setting, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores emerging findings in a sensory ethnography based in a nursery setting where video data has been co-produced with parents, practitioners and 2-year-old children. The project mobilises Froebel's twin concepts of 'unfoldment' and 'self-activity', reinstating the importance of the sensory-motor register as a form of knowledge production. It maps some interesting affinities between aspects of Froebel's thinking and a Deleuzian philosophy of movement and sensation. Focussing on proprioception as the felt-sense of bodies-in-motion, we discuss a video-based methodology that allows us to experiment with new ways of attending to the actions of 2-year-olds. Slowing the speed of video complicates the ocular conceptions of sight often associated with ethnographic observation. We propose instead practices of watching – of attentiveness and kinaesthetic receptiveness, where vision becomes 'haptic'. We confine ourselves here to video data of jumping bodies, making sense of/with the event of a jump within a philosophy of attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic data from two Romanian and two Danish nurseries, we explore the agency of children aged 9 months to 2.5 years. Considering action, time, and place, the article reflects on crying as one of the children's agentic practices. We identified five predominant types of crying and analysed peers' and caregivers' perceptions and reactions. The ethnographic approach uncovers the generational order and social logic of nurseries, making it possible to compare the ways in which children use crying in their communication with caregivers and peers in Romania and Denmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with the question of how ethnographers in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) can respond to the ontological turn in the social studies of childhood. Against the background of ECEC's deeply sedimented orientation towards the uniqueness of the individual child, the paper wishes to complicate the rationale of de-centring the child and childhood-research's child-centredness. Building on ethnographic field notes from a nursery class in the Early Years Unit of an Infant School in England, the authors discuss how ethnographers become entangled into the phenomenon of child-centredness, and how this entanglement is central for ethnographers to become answerable and response-able to the field of ECEC. The paper suggests that Karen Barad's concept of agential seperability offers possibilities to explore how the individual child is enacted in ECEC and to understand, how ECEC is entangled into performing and producing children's need for education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scent matters in the lives of humans (and other living creatures). However, thus far, it is largely unexplored in ethnographic work in education. Drawing on and adding to the literature on 'smellscapes' as a way of conceptualising space, this paper adds new insights into early childhood education and care (ECEC) by reporting on the differentials in scent between the staffroom and the baby room in a nursery in Central London. In so doing, the distinctive aromas of disinfectant and spices, which characterised these two spaces, are interrogated in order to consider children and educators' embodied experiences of scent as well as well as to evidence examples of generational and racial inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on annual general meeting of the board of directors Society of Robespierrist Studies held on September 26, 2020. It mentions Serge Aberdam presented the situation of the SER premises, including the ceiling collapsed at the end of August, 2020 following infiltration at the roof, which had been reported to the town hall by a letter dated of February 2019. It also mentions municipal services to be stored in an abandoned nursery.

Copyright of Housing Environment / Środowisko Mieszkaniowe is the property of Chair of Housing Environment, Faculty of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article reports that for children, it recommends not setting up cross-sectional systematic screening campaigns in schools, except for scientific research protocols, and in any case not in nursery and elementary schools in which such screening campaigns are inefficient and technically too restrictive.

This article analyzes the dimensions of inequality in Kinderläden (anti-authoritarian children's nurseries) and other alternative educational preschool institutions inWest Germany in the 1970s from the perspective of intersectionality. A distinction is made between theoretical discussions about equal opportunities, gender equality and compensatory education on the one hand, and the social composition of the Kinderläden on the other. In practice, they were socially homogeneous and mainly attended by the children of academic parents. The resulting tensions, which also concern parents' initiatives today, are shown in their historical genesis [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Friendship matters for young children's development, learning and experience of wellbeing. This paper emphasises the significance of young children's friendships for their wellbeing, especially in the context of early years settings. Findings are presented from two online questionnaires developed for the project, in which 155 parents/carers and 285 practitioners in England expressed their perceptions of what matters for young children's wellbeing. Data shows some ambivalence in the views of both parents/carers and practitioners about the importance of friendship in this context. Both groups gave low prioritisation to 'the company of friends' for children's wellbeing. As friendships are of central importance to young children themselves, this could suggests that adults and children may have different priorities, which raises questions about the extent to which young children's friendships are seen as important by adults. The paper concludes by proposing the need for practitioners in particular, but also parents, to consider their roles and priorities for children's lives within schools and nurseries, including how they might sensitively support and facilitate children's friendships in play, activities, transition and everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines processes of datafication in early childhood education (ECE) settings for children from birth-five years in England and how this relates to increased formalisation. Unusually, ECE in England includes a standardised curriculum and formative and statutory assessments; thus it has been described as subject to both datafication and 'schoolification', a term used to describe the adoption of school-like practices and values in ECE. Using interview data from ECE settings over the last decade and a theoretical framework drawing on Foucault and Deleuze, the paper sets out the ways in which settings in schools and nurseries are subject to the demands of data, and how this produces data-driven subjectivities for both teacher and child. These developments are then linked to aspects of 'schoolification' including more formal teaching, a focus on literacy and mathematics, and use of 'ability' grouping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study was carried out to determine the knowledge level of mothers regarding breast milk banking and wet nursery. Materials and Methods: Target population of the study planned as a definitive and cross‐sectional type was created for all mothers who gave birth in a state hospital in Bursa province between December 2017 and March 2018; the study was completed with 406 mothers who recently gave birth. The data were collected with a total of 32 questions prepared by the researchers in accordance with the literature. IBM SPSS Statistics 22 (IBM SPSS, Turkey) program was used to evaluate the data. Results: It was detected that the average age of mothers who participated in the study was 28.10±5.26; 31.8% (n=129) were primary school graduates; and 88.2% (n=258) were not working. It was detected that 54.9% (n=223) of mothers gave birth with normal delivery and most of them (92.4% n=375) breastfed their baby. It was seen that more than half of the mothers (56.4% n=229) did not want to be a wet nurse for someone they do not know; and 81% (n=329) of mothers would not accept wet nursing from someone they do not know if their baby needed breast milk. It was detected that 3/4 of mothers (73.20% n=297) did not know about Breast Milk Banking (ASB). When the reason they did not want to benefit from ASB was inspected, 44.9% (n=115) of mothers stated that they did not trust breast milk banking. The rate of mothers who wanted to be a wet nurse for a baby whose mothers they do not know in nuclear families (35.3%) was found significantly higher compared to mothers in extended families (p: 0.016; p<0.05). Conclusion: It was determined that mothers who participated in the study had insufficient knowledge about breast milk banking and had various concerns about breast milk and ASB. Educating mothers, raising the awareness of the society, raising awareness of the importance of breast milk and comprehensively addressing their concerns (security, religious concerns, etc.) in creating solutions is crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-school education prepares students for next stages. Therefore, parents consider certain factors before choosing schools for their children. A trend to prefer private schools than government schools for children has grown up rapidly in Bahawalpur. This has attracted researchers to study the factors behind the success of private in comparison to government schools. The present study aims to analyze the current position of pre-school education in government and private schools of Bahawalpur. This study was completed by a survey method. Questionnaire for teachers and a checklist for school heads were the tools of this study. The sample of this study was 298 school heads and 298 pre-school teachers teaching to the nursery, prep and Kindergarten classes. The results of the study indicated that all schools had not an ideal situation for quality pre-school education.Teacher-student ratio was not appropriate in government and private schools according to the requirements of effective pre-school education. Classrooms were overcrowded in both government and private schools. Majority of schools had more than 25 students in a section. A maximum number of students observed in a section was 50 in private and 70 in government schools. Results indicated that government schools had more qualified teachers in comparison to private schools. But these schools were found weak in comparison to private schools about classroom out/look, parents' involvement, planning, monitoring, pedagogical techniques applied in schools, co-curricular activities and motivation of teachers.A major weakness in private schools was observed that majority of teachers had no training in teaching. So, this study has suggested the authorities to take actions to improve the pre-school level education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The increasing need for continuous nursing interventions in child daycare settings is an understudied topic. In addition, the presence of a nurse in these facilities is still far from being a reality. In the Nursing School of Coimbra, students' clinical training in the area of Child Health and Pediatric Nursing takes place in nurseries/kindergartens. Objectives: To identify nursing teachers' perceptions of the most important aspects of nurses' role in nurseries/kindergartens. Methods: A qualitative, descriptive, exploratory study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with seven teachers between December 2016 and February 2017. Each interview lasted 30 to 45 minutes. Data were analyzed though the content analysis technique using categorical data analysis. The study was accepted by the President of the Nursing School and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing. Results: Some teachers believe that nurseries/kindergartens should have full-time nurses. Most teachers believe that nurses play a key role in these settings by working with children, families, and other professionals in collaboration with health structures, the school, and the family systems. Nurses' presence provides parents with a sense of security regarding their children's well-being and allows reducing work absenteeism. Conclusion: Not all teachers share the same opinion about nurses' presence and role in nurseries/kindergartens. Nurses play a key role in the intervention with children, families, and other professionals, as well as in areas such as management, research, and teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study reports on an initiative to promote vocabulary development within three nurseries serving an area with high levels of multiple deprivation. Focusing on the use of books as a mechanism to introduce and extend children's vocabulary, early years practitioners were trained and coached in the methodology of 'Word Aware'. Concurrent efforts to engage parents in their children's learning included the use of text alerts and information leaflets. Method: Each nursery identified a children's book to use as the focus for learning over a 4 week period. During this time staff were coached and supported as they put into practice the methodology of 'Word Aware'. Four words from each book were selected and formed the basis around which learning opportunities were planned and delivered. These words formed the basis of the baseline and follow-up assessment with children. Results: A bespoke vocabulary measure was used to collect data on children's word knowledge pre- and post-intervention (N=91) and showed a statistically significant improvement at post-intervention follow-up. Feedback from nursery staff and parents showed very positive impact of the approach. Limitations: Limitations of the research include the relatively small sample size and the short-term nature of the intervention. The robustness and reliability of the bespoke measure of vocabulary alongside the differing difficulty level of words chosen by each nursery are also limitations to be considered. Conclusions: The use of 'Word Aware' shows promise as an intervention in increasing children's vocabulary. The use of text alerts to encourage parental engagement in learning warrants greater use by educational establishments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nursery experience is now common for young children and their families. Questions of quality have focussed mainly on safety and early learning. The roles of subtle emotional processes in daily pedagogic interactions have received surprisingly little attention. This paper discusses the Tavistock Observation Method (TOM), a naturalistic method of observation underpinned by psychoanalytic conceptions and in which emotional experience is an integral part of observation narratives. The paper reports on a detailed evaluation of the use of an adapted version of TOM in nurseries in England and the contribution it can make to empirical exploration of emotional processes. A concurrent sister study will report on the use of A-TOM in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 796,500 places available for children in England, pre-school nurseries could serve as an important setting for population-wide dietary intervention. It is critical to understand the determinants of healthy food provision in this setting, which may include access to food stores. This study examined the association between objective, GIS-derived supermarket proximity and fruit and vegetable serving frequency, using data from 623 English nurseries. Overall, 116 (18%) nurseries served fruits and vegetables infrequently (<2-3 times/week), but provision differed by supermarket proximity. In adjusted multivariable regression models, nurseries farthest from their nearest supermarket (Q5, 1.7-19.8km) had 2.38 (95% CI 1.01-5.63) greater odds of infrequent provision. Our results suggest that supermarket access may be important for nurseries in meeting fruit and vegetable provision guidelines. We advance a growing body of international literature, for the first time linking the food practices of institutions to their neighbourhood food retail context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The use of pacifiers is an ancient practice, but often becomes a point of debate when parents and professionals aim to protect and promote breastfeeding as most appropriately for nurturing infants. We discuss the current literature available on pacifier use to enable critical decision-making regarding justifiable use of pacifiers, especially in the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative context, and we provide practical guidelines for clinicians.Discussion: Suck-swallow-breathe coordination is an important skill that every newborn must acquire for feeding success. In most cases the development and maintenance of the sucking reflex is not a problem, but sometimes the skill may be compromised due to factors such as mother-infant separation or medical conditions. In such situations the use of pacifiers can be considered therapeutic and even provide medical benefits to infants, including reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. The argument opposing pacifier use, however, is based on potential risks such as nipple confusion and early cessation of breastfeeding. The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding as embedded in the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative initially prohibited the use of pacifiers in a breastfeeding friendly environment to prevent potential associated risks. This article provides a summary of the evidence on the benefits of non-nutritive sucking, risks associated with pacifier use, an identification of the implications regarded as 'justifiable' in the clinical use of pacifiers and a comprehensive discussion to support the recommendations for safe pacifier use in healthy, full-term, and ill and preterm infants. The use of pacifiers is justifiable in certain situations and will support breastfeeding rather than interfere with it. Justifiable conditions have been identified as: low-birth weight and premature infants; infants at risk for hypoglyceamia; infants in need of oral stimulation to develop, maintain and mature the sucking reflex in preterm infants; and the achievement of neurobehavioural organisation. Medical benefits associated with the use of pacifiers include providing comfort, contributing towards neurobehavioural organisation, and reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Guidelines are presented for assessing and guiding safe pacifier use, for specific design to ensure safety, and for cessation of use to ensure normal childhood development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the incidence of otherwise undiagnosed congenital heart disease (CHD) in a population of children born in a hospital with routine pulse oximetry (RPO) screening compared to children born at home. METHODS: We reviewed 15 years of births at 2 hospitals for incidence of undiagnosed CHD with RPO. The Health Department reviewed the same data for out of hospital births. RESULTS: A total of 50,545 hospital births were screened and 1,274 children were born outside the hospital. There were 28 hospital-born babies diagnosed with cyanotic CHD prior to nursery discharge. Only one of these babies would not have been diagnosed without RPO. Three children were missed and there were 3 false positives. Sensitivity and positive predictive value of RPO was 25%, specificity and negative predictive value of RPO exceed 99%. The incidence of CHD requiring RPO diagnosis was roughly one birth per 50,000. Two children born at home with undiagnosed CHD were missed. One of these children presented with neonatal demise. CONCLUSION: RPO screening is still valuable in diagnosing CHD only diagnosable with RPO. However, the incidence of CHD requiring RPO to diagnose is similar to other congenital diseases which are not mandated national screening tests. In our limited experience a patient is roughly 25 times more likely to have undiagnosed CHD if they are born outside of a hospital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Several studies have reported poor indoor air quality ( IAQ) in day care centers ( DCCs), and other studies have shown that children attending them have an increased risk of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is an association between ventilation in DCCs and sick leave among nursery children. Data on child sick leave within an 11-week period were obtained for 635 children attending 20 DCCs. Ventilation measurements included three proxies of ventilation: air exchange rate ( ACR) measured with the decay method, ACR measured by the perfluorocarbon tracer gas ( PFT) method, and CO2 concentration measured over a 1-week period. All but two DCCs had balanced mechanical ventilation system, which could explain the low CO2 levels measured. The mean concentration of CO2 was 643 ppm, exceeding 1000 ppm in only one DCC. A statistically significant inverse relationship between the number of sick days and ACR measured with the decay method was found for crude and adjusted analysis, with a 12% decrease in number of sick days per hour increase in ACR measured with the decay method. This study suggests a relationship between sick leave among nursery children and ventilation in DCCs, as measured with the decay method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives To determine whether newborn hearing screening in a well-baby nursery (WBN) and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nursery: 1) meet three targeted, screening, referral, and diagnostic follow-up rates; 2) compare the average age of diagnosis for infants admitted to the WIN and NICU; and 3) determine prevalence of hearing loss in neonatal population; and 4) try to find a practical newborn hearing screening time algorithm to reduce refer rate in NICU. Materials and Methods It examined 15,624 newborns in theWBN (13,676) and NICU (1948) screened for congenital HL using AABR. The variables analyzed in it were the screening rate, referral rate, follow-up rate, diagnostic rate and diagnostic age, prevalence rate, degrees of congenital bilateral HL. The study was approved by the hospital's institutional review board (13MMHISO23). Results The screening rates were 99.8% and 99.6% in the WBN and NICU groups, respectively, without significant difference. The referral rates were 0.7% and 2.8% in the WBN and NICU groups, with significant difference. Furthermore, the diagnostic follow-up rates were 76.7% and 89.1% in the WBN and NICU groups, without significant difference. The average initial diagnostic ages were 1.9 months and 3.8 months in the WBN and NICU groups, with significant difference. The prevalence of congenital bilateral hearing loss were 0.27% and 1.6% in the WBN and NICU groups, with significant difference. Conclusion The screening, referral and follow-up rate in the WBN and NICU groups were equivalent to the quality indicators. For NICU group, screening and diagnostic follow up were performed later than those in WBN group; however the lower referral rate in our NICU group was successfully achieved in this study and can be applied clinically. The prevalence of congenital bilateral hearing loss was higher in the NICU group than in the WBN group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]