Dr. Poon leads the Early Childhood Screening Research and Evaluation Unit (est. 2006) at the Human Early Learning Partnership at UBC.

The Screening Unit investigates the implementation and outcomes of population-based early detection and intervention initiatives that aim to identify young children who may be developmentally at risk.

The Screening Unit is conducting projects related to three provincial early childhood screening programs:

1. Early hearing detection and intervention program (BC Early Hearing Program)
2. Three-year-old and kindergarten vision screening programs
3. Early childhood dental programs

The Hearing Loss Registry Projects:

Prospective Registry Development:

• Through our collaboration with the BC Early Hearing Program, we have provided support for the creation of a new web-based, population-based hearing loss registry, the BC Early Hearing Surveillance Tool (BEST), which integrates newborn screening, audiological assessment, medical assessment, and early intervention data.
• It is the first registry of its kind in BC that allows for systematic analyses of hearing loss characteristics (e.g., incidence, severity, and typology) with respect to the developmental outcomes of the population of young children with permanent hearing losses in BC.

Historical Data Abstraction Project:

• This project involves the creation of a provincial Historical Hearing Loss Registry. The objective of this research project is to examine the status and impact of early hearing loss identification for young children in BC.
• This multi-phased project involves abstraction and compilation of data related to hearing and developmental status for deaf and hard of hearing children who have received services and support from early intervention services in BC.
• The primary aim of the initial phase of the research project is to collect baseline, historical data for children whose hearing losses were not identified through BC’s newly implemented provincial early hearing detection and intervention program.

Early Childhood Dental Programs Evaluation:

• In 2006, the Ministry of Health (now Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport) engaged HELP to conduct a systematic four-year evaluation of the BC Early Childhood Dental programs. The overall purpose of this evaluation is to assess the ability of these programs to improve the dental health status of children in BC.

Vision Screening Program Evaluation:

• The Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport engaged the Human Early Learning Partnership to conduct a systematic four-year evaluation from 2007/2008 to 2010/2011 of the 3-Year-Old and Kindergarten Vision Screening Programs. The overall purpose of this evaluation is to assess the ability of these programs to identify early children with possible vision conditions and, in turn, improve the vision health status of young children in BC.