Gretchen Frazee / WFIU
Margaret Katter participates in class at the Indiana School for the Deaf. Katter, who will graduate as the ISD's valedictorian this Spring, has an autoimmune disorder that adversely affects her hearing. She's not a candidate for cochlear implants, but Katter says she's glad she wasn't put in mainstream schools.
When she was less than two years old, the Katters decided to teach their daughter sign language and enroll her in classes at the Indiana School for the Deaf (ISD) in Indianapolis. Neither of Margaret Katter’s parents is deaf, but her mom is a speech language pathologist and her aunt is an audiologist.
“We’ve always said if God was going to bring a hard of hearing child into the world, there really wasn’t a better place than our family.”
—Greg Katter, Margaret Katter’s Father
“All along we’ve always said if God was going to bring a hard of hearing child into the world, there really wasn’t a better place than our family,” Margaret’s dad, Greg, says. Continue Reading →
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Gretchen Frazee / WFIU
Grant Phllips interacts with his classmates in his literature class at Covenant Chrtstian High School. Phillips has had a cochlear implant since he was 16 months old, which allows him to hear.
If there were a poster child for cochlear implants, Grant Phillips would be it. When Phillips was born, he was completely deaf. After exploring several options, his parents heard about a new procedure that had been shown to restore hearing loss at a very successful rate.
The first surgeries and FDA studies for cochlear implants, a device that aid hearing by stimulating the cochlea in the inner ear, were taking place right in their hometown of Indianapolis at Riley Hospital. The problem was that the FDA had only approved the surgery for children more than two years old. After consulting with the lead doctor, Dr. Richard Miyamoto, the Philips and hospital agreed to perform surgery on Grant when he was just 16 months old. Continue Reading →
