SophieSpeaking Up

At the end of a suburban cul de sac, a 12-year-old named Sophie is teaching her younger sister, Olivia, how to ride a bike. Sophie carefully demonstrates turning, speeding up, and most importantly, braking, as she calls out instructions to little Olivia who runs beside her. “I'm more of a tomboy,” said Sophie. “I like climbing trees and falling out of them and getting back up and doing it again and playing with rocks and attacking ants and then running away. All that stuff.” Sophie being more of a tomboy isn’t the only way the sisters are different; she was born with hearing loss while Olivia has typical hearing.

“Really there's absolutely no difference parenting Olivia and Sophie,” said John, the girls’ father. “Quite honestly, I often forget that Sophie's even deaf. She’s so well adjusted.” Sophie’s hearing loss doesn’t seem noticeable now, but when she was a newborn, her diagnosis stunned her parents, Janeth and John.

Sophie’s parents persisted in finding experts who would consider amplifying their young daughter, and they succeeded. At four months old, Sophie received her first bone conduction device. “Everything changed. It really changed her world and our world and you could see results immediately. She could hear us. She could hear her environment around her and it was just such a turning point,” said Janeth. “We're very blessed to find the experts that we did.”

“Don't take ‘no’ for an answer. In Sophie’s case, the experts weren't very educated on this particular condition, so it would have been really easy just to give up and say, ‘this is just how it's going to be,’” said John. “But ask the next question, find the next expert, and keep asking those questions to put your child in the best place.”

The same persistence that helped John and Janeth find experts who would provide appropriate hearing technology for Sophie at an early age continued to pay off as they taught their daughter to listen and speak. For the first few months after she received her bone conduction device, Janeth and John surrounded her with sounds and new experiences, taking her on long walks and exposing her to the new world around her. “From the beginning, it's been a learning experience for us to be really consistent in what we do and provide for Sophie,” said John. “Again, she took to the technology early on, so she knows that she must wear her equipment at all times. Making sure that the equipment is operating correctly takes consistency and persistence.” As soon as she was amplified, they ensured that she wore her bone conduction device during all waking hours, a key component of the Listening and Spoken Language (LSL) experience.

More than a decade later, Sophie is flourishing in the mainstream. She loves playing volleyball, swimming, running track, and hanging out with new friends she’s made in middle school. “I don't think hearing loss limits me from my goals at all,” said Sophie, “because I can still hear and I can still make a difference in the world.”