Cochlear implants give hearing to 5-year-old girl who was born deaf
Lori Wolfe/The Herald-Dispatch Dr. Thomas Jung looks over 5-year-old Emily Neal's bilateral implants Monday, Feb. 11, 2008, at his office in Huntington. Neal is the first child in the area to receive the implants to help her hear.
Feb 12, 2008 @ 11:46 PM
By LAURA WILCOX
The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON -- Emily Grace Neal is 5 years old and loves to talk and listen. Thanks in part to ear implants, she can do both better than ever.
Dr. Thomas Jung said hearing impairments are fairly rare at birth. Emily was born deaf in both ears, and is the first to have bilateral cochlear implants in the area.
Cochlear implants work by stimulating any functioning auditory nerves inside the cochlea with electrical impulses, helping the person hear certain frequencies of sound.
Before cochlear implants, a child would have been given hearing aids, amplifying sound. If those didn't work, they would have to rely on sign language, Jung said.
"Before implants came along, the only option you had was just to make the sound louder, which doesn't necessarily make it clearer," he said.
Emily has been doing speech therapy since she was 10 months old. She received her first cochlear implant when she was 13 months old, and the second implant came last August. Having the implants in both ears should help her determine where sound is coming from, Jung said.
"You can handle things better in a noisy environment," he said.
The implants cannot be worn while sleeping or swimming.
Emily's mother, Shelley Neal of Chesapeake, said Emily is doing great in kindergarten. She requires no special school services and talks without a muffle. She knows sign language but doesn't need it. She prefers to talk.
Emily recently received an excellent report card, and Neal said she knows many of the state capitals and presidents. She said she's a fun-loving 5-year-old who's eager to learn and loves to paint her nails and wear lipstick, especially before she sees Jung.
Neal said Emily also loves her implants, which she calls her hearing aids.
"She likes to hear, that's for sure. It made me realize I made a good decision," Neal said.
Jung said it will take time for Emily to completely adjust to the implants, but she continues to do well. It is more difficult for children born deaf to know if what they are hearing is normal because they're not "hardwired" for sound like adults.
"It takes a lot of training and therapy to get them to be where they need to be. A lot of that responsibility falls onto parents," Jung said.
Fortunately, Emily has a family that works very hard with her, he said.
"I prayed for a baby for 10 years before Emily came," Neal said. "I knew God gave her to me and he had a plan for her life."
