Rady Children’s ‘Joy of Sound Celebration’ returns after 5 years
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The annual Joy of Sound celebration returned over the weekend after a five-year hiatus. The event, hosted by Rady Children’s Audiology Department, celebrates families they service who have children with hearing loss.
The event featured a superhero theme with games, face painting and plenty of hearing assistance resources.
“To be able to come out here and do what he wants and play and be a kid is really, really cool,” said Mark Taylor, whose son has hearing loss.
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Taylor said Logan failed his newborn hearing screening, but quickly got hearing aids at three months, then a cochlear implant at eight months in his right ear.
“Pretty much to him developmentally wise, he is developing as if he had earing the whole time, he doesn’t know any different. But at the time, it was everyday, it was something brand new he was picking up,” Taylor said.
Rady Children’s Audiology Department has fitted more than 900 hearing aids on children. Additionally, the department follows more than 400 patients in San Diego with cochlear implants every year.
A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides sound to someone who is deaf or severely hard of hearing. The implants are used when hearing aids are not enough for certain people with profound hearing loss.
“Kids are able to speak and hear and listen to music. And then they can go to streamline regular school, learn how to talk– it’s fabulous,” said Dr. Daniela Carvalho, a pediatric otolaryngologist at Rady Children’s.
Carvalho also performs the implant surgeries and is the director of the cochlear implant team and hearing clinic at the hospital.
With the cochlear implants, however, comes a lot of learning in the form of speech and auditory verbal therapies, even treatments.
Veer Chopra, 16, is helping people with that learning on his new app called “The Sounds Training App.” The San Diego teen experienced hearing loss himself
“So you can begin with this app, then has this auditory hierarchy,” Chopra explained.
Launched back in January, the auditory learning app helps people with cochlear implants train their brain to hear sounds correctly.
Chopra said, “It starts off with basic syllables, phonetics, like easy words and then it gets harder and harder.”
“You get it right you move on, you get it wrong and you either try again, or you can add it to your own customized words list,” Chopra explained further. “So the customized word list allows you just to practice your weak spots, and really helps your audiologist.”
Chopra said he was born with hearing loss, and now has two cochlear implants. The teen said he had his first implant at 7 years old in his right ear, then at 14 years old in his left ear.
“What is it like having a cochlear implant, and going about your day-to-day life?” FOX 5 asked.
“Day to day life there are some challenges, especially in the social world. Communication, you have to be comfortable, you have to be confident and ask people to repeat what they say. You have to know that yes you do have these, yes they impact people, you have to let people know that,” Chopra answered.
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Now, the young app maker said he wants to let everyone know about “The Sounds Training App.”
“My end goal is to be able to mass distribute this in hospitals, have everyone in different hospitals using this, and have audiologists use this as a helper tool that makes their jobs a lot easier,” Chopra said.
“And when you see these children becoming teenagers and adults, and enjoying sound, it’s just baffling, warms my heart,” Dr. Carvalho said.
“He is very aware that this is what is giving him access to sound, so much so if he wants a break…he can get truly peace and quiet if he wants,” Taylor said of Logan.
Click here to learn more about Rady Children’s Audiology Department.
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