Chloe gets Cochlear Implants - NDCS

Chloe has worn hearing aids since she was a baby. But now she can’t hear the TV or her teacher. She finds it hard to join in with her friends. Chloe is starting to feel fed up.

Dad takes Chloe to have her hearing aids checked. The audiologist tests Chloe’s hearing and says it’s got worse, so her hearing aids aren’t strong enough anymore. The audiologist says cochlear implants might help Chloe hear better.

Mum, Dad, and Chloe go to the implant centre at the hospital. They ask the people working there lots of questions about cochlear implants. Chloe goes for a scan to take pictures of the inside of her ears. She has to keep as still as a statue.

Chloe’s mum and dad read lots about cochlear implants. They talk to mums and dads of children who have got cochlear implants already. Everyone has a different story to tell. Chloe’s mum and dad ask her what she would like to do.

A Teacher of the Deaf visits Chloe at school to check how well she hears in the classroom. Mum, Dad, and Chloe go back to the hospital. The doctor says that cochlear implants help lots of people, but they don’t work for everyone.

A cochlear implant has an outside part and an inside part:

• Transmitter coil
• Electrodes
• Speech processor
• Receiver

Chloe gets to choose the colour for her speech processor and transmitter coil. Chloe will need an operation to have the inside part put under her skin. What colours would you choose?

The doctor explains the sounds Chloe will hear with her cochlear implants will be different from how she heard with her hearing aids. It may take Chloe a while to get used to hearing the new sounds.

Chloe and her mum pack her bag for the hospital. What would you take with you to hospital?

Everyone at the hospital is very friendly. The nurses give her some medicine which makes her go to sleep and not feel anything. After the operation, Chloe wakes up and she has a bandage on her head.

The next morning, Chloe has an x-ray to check the electrodes are in the right place and then she’s allowed to go home. Chloe has to go back in a week to have her scars checked. Until Chloe gets her processors, she can’t hear at all. Mum and dad have to act things out and sometimes draw things to help her understand.

The day they’ve all been waiting for arrives. Chloe’s having her processors fitted and her cochlear implants switched on. Chloe is very excited!

The audiologist fits Chloe’s processors and connects them to the computer. Then he switches them on. It takes a few months of visiting the hospital and getting used to the new sounds her cochlear implants make, but Chloe is very happy. She can join in and hear with her friends again and her teacher.

Check out our websites:

• www.ndcs.org.uk for grown-ups
• www.buzz.org.uk for kids

If a child in your care is getting a cochlear implant, please contact us for more information.

NDCS Freephone Helpline: 0808 800 8880 (voice and text)
Email: helpline@ndcs.org.uk

Read our booklet: Cochlear Implants: A guide for families JR1104

Illustrations by Tim Bradford www.illustrationweb.com

Licence to National Deaf Children’s Society 03/2017–03/2027

Published by the National Deaf Children’s Society © NDCS April 2017
Next review due: April 2019

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Tel: 020 7490 8656 (voice and text)
Fax: 020 7251 5020

NDCS is a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1016532 and in Scotland no. SC040779. This publication can be requested in large print.

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