Vic: Ethan's favourite gift

AAP General News (Australia)
12-07-2006
Vic: Ethan's favourite gift

By Oliver Wigg

MELBOURNE, Dec 7 AAP - Ethan Moss squirms in his seat like any other four-year-old
while a doctor describes the procedure that gave him hearing.

Diagnosed deaf in both ears aged five months, Ethan received his first cochlear ear
implant before his first birthday, giving him a very good chance of normal language development.

After a second implant, he now hears well enough through both ears to learn and speak
like any other four year old.

"[Other mothers] say things like, `Oh! My four and a half year old doesn't talk as
well as he does'," says proud mum Nancy Moss.

Ethan chats happily about kindergarten and the birthday presents he's looking forward
to in a few weeks, but his favourite topic of conversation is his ear implant.

"Can I take them off?" Ethan asks before proudly displaying one of his speech processors,
the small external devices that pick up sounds and send them to his cochlear implant.

"Total strangers, he'll just take them off and show people," says Nancy.

"I think he feels very special."

When Ethan was first offered an implant, Nancy was concerned about the invasive surgery.

"It was scary," she says. "But there were no guarantees at the end of the day, so we
felt we were a bit trapped."

But once she'd made up her mind, Nancy didn't mess around, and neither did Ethan's doctors.

"We wanted it done yesterday," she says.

Eight and a half weeks later Ethan could hear and the process of learning to speak had begun.

AAP stu/gfr/drp/de

KEYWORD: COCHLEAR ETHAN (PIX AVAILABLE)

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