Super Emma!Our sweet and fearless Emma has defied the odds! Three years ago she was born with deficient cochlear hair cells in her inner ears which caused severe-to-profound(extreme), bilateral(both ears), sensorineural(structural) hearing loss. Upon birth, access to environmental sounds and spoken language was severely impacted. Emma could not hear speech at all, and was mainly perceiving loud sounds as only vibrations.
As a family, we had to make a decision: (1) start to learn American Sign Language as a family and hope that her signing skills don’t surpass ours before she reaches high school (yikes!) or (2) choose to follow an Auditory/Oral (listening/speaking) approach. We chose the latter and our world will never be the same!
Emma was implanted with bilateral cochlear implants at 11 months of age and started attending her school, Northern Voices, 11 months later in September of 2018. Northern Voices is the only non-profit school in MN offering children who are deaf and hard of hearing a program focused on listening and spoken language. Their whole existence and mission is to enable students to communicate through the use of listening and spoken language.
With the daily practice of listening and speaking, Northern Voices provides Emma with the self-confidence and independence that will open many doors for her in the future! She is thriving and growing at a remarkable pace! I never thought there would be a time when we had to ask her to “stop talking” just to get a word in edgewise ;)
We couldn’t be more grateful for all the opportunities Emma has had to access sound and language because of this program! The staff are out of this world! The care and support we get as a family can’t be matched! And Emma would agree…as she sings her favorite songs, arms stretched out wide, at the top of her lungs every day!
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Unfortunately, this year, the annual Northern Voices Walk for Talk fundraiser has been switched to a virtual event. At this time, we would like to ask everyone to please consider making a donation to benefit Emma and her school. Every donation helps give a child a voice….and a VERY loud voice at that!
Thank you for your continued love and support! <3