Hear Our Parents

Attention Parents! Inspire others by sharing your child's achievements here. For privacy purposes, we will only publish first names and your hometown and state.
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My daughter, Emily, was diagnosed with a hearing loss at the age of 5 years-old. Her loss is in the mild to moderate range in both ears. The ENT's did not think she needed hearing aids due to the fact that she had such good speech. She did not loose any of her hearing until she was between the ages of 3 and 4. In the past 6 months or so we have seen a dramatic change in her. She started to suffer at school and withdrawing from all her friends. People starting asking why doesn't Emily talk and why doesn't she play in groups anymore. It really started to worry us. Her grades were good but slipping. She was having a definite struggle in every day activities. This past November she received hearing aids in both ears and with in the first hour we could see a difference. She has become a totally different child. She is happy again and hasn't stopped talking. She tells everyone how much she loves having the hearing aids in. She has no problems taking them out and showing people what they look like. When we went back after 2 weeks to the Audiologist and they did a hearing test with the hearing aids in Emily tested in the normal range. It has been so great to see such a difference in her and I am so happy to have my old daughter back and enjoying life again.

Mia is the youngest of three. At 4 months old I had realized that Mia was not vocalizing as much as her siblings did at her age. Mia was often preoccupied with her hands, lights, and fans....which was odd at the time.

Something told me that i should get hear hearing tested. I had a feeling she had some sort of a loss. I was right.

Mia was diagnosed as profoundly deaf in both ears. We were then told that even the strongest hearing aids would not benefit Mia. We began to research cochlear implants. At 11 months of age Mia received her first implant (Nucleus 24 Contour) She was enrolled in auditory verbal therapy. Mia did not speak till 18 months post implant....she was almost three years old. But when she began to speak it was in 2 to 3 word phrases!!

In time I began to see that even with an implant...there were many limitations. Mia had a difficult time in noise...as well as her speech was still not very clear.

When Mia turned 4 we were told there would be research being done on bilaterals and if we chose Mia could be a part of it At four and a half Mia received her second implant (Freedom) We called it the "hearing fairy" as it has a delicate light that indicated that it’s working.

Mia simply loves to hear with both her ears Her new ear caught up within a few months. Mia has now hardly any difficulty in noise....and is beginning to localize! Her speech is also much clearer.

Mia is fully mainstreamed in her siblings’ school...and still gets auditory verbal therapy 3 times a week.

Mia has made HUGE gains but is still about 6 months behind her "hearing peers." Mia has taught us to slow down and appreciate the "little things" we all tend to take for granted. For that we will always be eternally grateful.

~ Proud mom, Eva
 

To all the parents and families that are facing this same situation be strong for your child. Give them all the attention possible and remember every moment counts. The day will come when your child or children will look at us and say Thank You mom and dad for Caring and Loving me enough to see to it that I have a Wonderful Future!
 

Kerry, Massachusetts

Hadley was diagnosed at birth with a severe bilateral hearing loss (Connexin 26).  She was fitted with hearing aids at 6 months and started auditory-verbal therapy the very next day.  We are amazed by all she has accomplished in these last 14 months: she is your typical 20-month old in every respect.  Hadley loves to sing, dance, make music, talk, laugh, crack jokes, and be with people.  Our family is fully committed to the auditory-verbal approach and strongly recommend that all families explore this path as an option.

Shelley and Colin in Ontario, Canada

Our son Miles is presently 7 1/2 years old. After 1 1/2 years of testing, he was finally diagnosed and aided at 2 1/2 years old. Unfortunately, he was still misdiagnosed until he was 4. He received a cochlear implant just before his fifth birthday when his loss was severe to profound.

Miles has many hearing impaired and hearing friends at school and in the neighborhood. Our friendly, fearless, athletic child has become well-known wherever he goes.

While we realize that Miles has many hurdles ahead of him, we are extremely proud of his will to learn and participate. We are confident that he will be successful in whatever he does.
 

Child: John 
His age: 11 3/4 yrs  
His home: Virginia
His grade: He has just completed 6th 
His accomplishments this year: Student of the Month (January); member of 1st place State Finals Destination Imagination Theater SmARTs team (check out www.destinationimagination.org); High honor roll (all A's) for both semesters and the year; Presidential Award for Academic Excellence; Highest Grade Average for Literature;

Highest Grade Average for Language Arts; Highest Grade Average for Science; Highest GPA for 6th grade (tied); Good Citizenship Award. He also participated on the Middle School Soccer team and the Boys Tennis team. He also played violin in the Middle School Orchestra. He was also a recipient of an AG Bell School Age Financial Award to assist with his tuition. John was late diagnosed at age 2 yrs 4 months. He wasn't aided until age 3 yrs 3 months. He received his implant in April 2000 at age 8 yrs 8 months.

John's mother says: I am grateful for the cochlear implant, for the wonderful professionals who have worked with my son, for my son who never gave up and never complained about the years of therapy he had to endure when other kids got to go home and watch cartoons, for his wonderful, supportive, private school which had never had a deaf student before but were willing to give him a chance, and for AG Bell who helped us afford the tuition. I am also grateful for the CI Circle listserv that offered support and information over the years. I live in a town that hosts the state school for the deaf. It is a traditional Deaf Culture atmosphere and it hasn't always been easy to make the choices we've made as a family. CI Circle helped me stick to my guns and become a better advocate for my son.
 

Malathi in Maryland

My son, Rahul, is a 12 year old child with congenital bilateral sensorineural severe to profound hearing loss.  He started wearing hearing aids when he was two months old (I was blessed with an intuition to suspect something was wrong as early as two weeks of his birth) After one year of sign language intervention, we decided to go with oral/Auditory Verbal approach.  Most of the training was done at home by us. I even enrolled in special education graduate classes and am now a special education teacher, thanks to my son.

Rahul caught up to his peers in receptive and expressive language by preschool and overtook them soon afterwards. Now he has only articulation and social issues. He works hard to listen and speechread. He will be getting a cochlear implant this month. Rahul plays baseball, tournament level chess, plays clarinet in band and takes private lessons in piano and clarinet.  He received a $1,000 scholarship from Children's Hearing Institute to study music. He is a hard working child and and according to his teachers, he is a role model for everyone at his school.

Francie was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss at 7 months old.  She started in the infant program at Tucker-Maxon Oral School when she was 8 months old. She wore hearing aids for 10 months, and in that time she learned 25 words! However, even though we knew what she was saying, the words only consisted of vowel sounds and all sounded almost alike, so we knew she'd do far better with more sound. 

She was implanted at 17 months, at that time the youngest child to be implanted in Oregon. Her word list grew exponentially from day one of her cochlear implant activation and she quickly caught up to and surpassed her hearing peers with language.  Speech came together at about 1 1/2 years post-implant.

Francie is now 5, fully two years ahead of hearing kids her age in receptive and expressive language, and has NO speech delays.  She will be starting a public school, full-day Spanish immersion kindergarten in the fall.  She will be taught math and science in Spanish and language arts & social studies in English. This would not have been possible without the implant and intense, focused work early-on. 

Remember, all the hard work and sacrifices you make at the beginning pay off for your child in the end.  I truly feel

Francie has become who she was meant to be because she can listen and talk.
 

Melissa in Atlanta, Georgia

When Rachel's deafness was first diagnosed, my husband and I were devastated and clueless as to where to turn.  The only referral we got from our audiologist was to a school where the children only used sign language and we didn't want that for her.  When Rachel's severe-to-profound hearing loss progressed to total deafness, we were further discouraged because we had decided that it was very important to us that she learn to communicate orally so that she could be a part of mainstream society. 

Fortunately, she was born at a time when the cochlear implant was available.  She was part of the clinical trials on the Nucleus 22, which she received at 2 years and 7 months of age.  We began working with our Auditory-Verbal therapist as soon as she was hooked up and never looked back.  She now hears and speaks beautifully, even conversing with friends and family on the phone, has made honor roll in school since middle school and just made the Principal's List in her first year in high school.  Next year, she will be in honors classes for English, French, and algebra.

Our other daughter, Jessica, was diagnosed with deafness at less than a day old because of Rachel's deafness.  She never had any residual hearing.  Because we knew firsthand from having had Rachel the impact on language of being deprived of hearing in the critical early language learning years, we didn't want to wait to get her hearing.  When our CI surgeon in NY agreed to implant her at age 15 months, we jumped at the chance even though it meant commuting to NY from Atlanta.  Jessica was the youngest congenitally deaf child in the country to be implanted at the time.  By age 6, thanks to her early implant, she was able to complete her Auditory-Verbal therapy with language that tested age level to two years above. 

You may contact her via email at mkchaikof@attbi.com if you have any questions.