Hearing You Loud and Clear - Cool Pictures! ( Child, CI)

[Guest guest]

The Courier Mail, Australia, December 24, 2006 12:00am

You gotta see the pictures of little Ayham at activation!

http://tinyurl.com/y9p7dd

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Hearing you loud and clear

THE LOOK on little Ayham's face said it all. After a year of muted

and blurred noises he had just heard his mum tell him clearly that

she and his dad loved him.

It wasn't so much the words Najat Nasser whispered to her boy, but

the soft purr of her voice that triggered the reaction.

Bewilderment turned to pure joy as first Najat and then husband

Abdulaal repeated the precious words to their son.

As noise entered his life, the usually placid toddler turned first to

his mum, then shrieked, shrieked and shrieked some more.

For his parents, it was their most wonderful moment.

" This was the moment I was waiting for – just to tell him we love

him, " said Najat, 30, who was born in Yemen and later moved to strife-

torn Sudan where she married her husband Abdulaal, 35.

The couple, who are both doctors, now live in Brisbane.

" Now I am just waiting for the time he says 'Mum' or 'Dad', " his

mother said.

Only days after Ayham's birth, the couple was told he was profoundly

deaf.

While in Sudan his future would have been bleak, it will now be

infinitely brighter thanks to the team at Brisbane's Mater Hospital

who fitted the device three weeks ago.

Last week, two days before his first birthday, it was switched on for

the first time.

" I really find myself blessed to be here and to have the cochlear

implant available for Ayham, " said Najat.

" I am always thinking what would happen if I was in Sudan. " Dr

Belinda Henry, from the Mater's audiology department, said Ayham had

a hearing aid fitted at two months of age, but it was very limited

and he wouldn't have been able to develop normal speech.

Mater speech pathologist Catriona Dart said Ayham was " like a newborn

with his hearing " .

" It is like a sea of sound for him, because he is hearing everything

in the room, including the airconditioning, " Ms Dart said.

" The noises he is making are appropriate for an eight-month-old, so

hopefully in a year he will be making words of his own. The research

shows the younger you implant, the more chance they have of catching

up to their peers. "