 'She'll never speak.' This is what my parents were told when I was born. They were informed that I would have to learn sign language and attend a school for deaf children. I failed the standard newborn hearing screening all babies have, and was diagnosed with profound (complete) deafness. I am so deaf that I wouldn't be able to hear an explosion right next to me. Today, 16 years on, I attend a mainstream grammar school and have just finished my GCSEs – and it's all thanks to my 'magic ears'. Cochlear implants create artificial sound, stimulating the auditory nerve, where hearing aids would not work, as they only make existing sound louder. When they heard the results of my newborn hearing screening, my parents were worried that the hopes and dreams for their child were no longer achievable. Years later, my mum told me about a mobile above my cot that played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and her sadness that I would never hear it. My parents had never heard of cochlear implants – and the option wasn't mentioned when I was born even though they were available on the NHS, so they began scouring the internet for solutions, discovering this technology. They found a doctor at the private Portland Hospital in London who was willing to do the surgery on a young child – they firmly believed they didn't have time to wait. I received my 'magic ears' at nine months' old for my first side and then at 15 months for my second. I was one of the youngest people in Britain to have cochlear implant surgery (Picture: Ava Pearson) I then did speech therapy for two years until the age of three with a charity called Auditory Verbal UK (AVUK). These days the focus is more on getting me to stop talking! At the time, I was one of the youngest people in Britain to have cochlear implant surgery. This was a huge benefit when it came to developing my speech and listening skills, as I was not as){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
‘She’ll never speak.’
This is what my parents were told when I was born. They were informed that I would have to learn sign language and attend a school for deaf children.
I failed the standard newborn hearing screening all babies have, and was diagnosed with profound (complete) deafness.
I am so deaf that I wouldn’t be able to hear an explosion right next to me.