Meet Katie Dening

Deaf daughter can now join in with musical family - By Mum Jo

Katie Dening, 3, Cambridge, Nucleus Freedom

We are a family of music lovers so when we brought our new baby daughter home from hospital we never imagined that she would not be able to enjoy any of the fantastic sounds that are such a vital part of our lives.

But when Katie was four days old, my mother-in-law, a pianist and opera singer, declared that Katie must be deaf because she did not respond to the family piano. A few weeks later, hospital tests confirmed that Katie had `significant hearing loss` in both ears. Genetic testing ruled out the most common faulty gene which causes deafness, so we still don’t know if it is inherited or due to environmental factors? I did have cold-like symptoms when I was pregnant.

Katie was fitted with powerful digital hearing aids when she was just 8 weeks old, but they were of little use, so Katie was referred for a cochlear implant. In fact, she ended up with the very latest device, called a Nucleus Freedom. It was fitted at Addenbrooke`s Hospital in July 2005.

Katie is one of the youngest children in the UK to be given a cochlear implant as she was just 15 months old when the implant was fitted and she has progressed rapidly. A month after the switch on session she responded to voices and within six months she could recognise her name, say `Mum`, and hear TV and music at normal volumes.

Katie is still lip-reading but the doctors are confident that she will have normal speech and language by the age of five, which would allow her to attend mainstream school. We are also hoping that Katie might get a second implant though, because of the cost, we may have to fight to get it done on the NHS.