Eviana's world comes alive
SARAH CODDINGTON
Relevant offers
When Eviana Peterson said her first word `mum-ma' it was extra special for her mum Leah – the two-year-old was born profoundly deaf.
Mrs Peterson and her husband Greg from Hauraki Corner thought Eviana would never speak and would use sign language all her life.
Mrs Peterson first noticed Eviana was deaf just by watching the way she interacted with the world.
"She looked around a lot because that was how she took her world in," she says.
But doctors thought she had no hearing problems.
"At first I thought I was being a paranoid first-time mum but in the end mother's intuition came through," says Mrs Peterson.
Eviana's one-year-old sister Isla has normal hearing and Mrs Peterson can now see a big difference in the ways they acted as babies.
At nine months old Eviana got a cochlear hearing implant. Like an artificial ear the device works by transferring electrical currents in her eardrum into sound.
"We are still hanging on to her every word, it is just amazing to us," says Mrs Peterson.
Eviana goes to The Hearing House once a week to have auditory-verbal therapy.
The charitable trust specialises in teaching deaf children with hearing implants how to talk and listen.
Her verbal language is now almost at the same level of any two-year-old, even though Eviana started talking later then other children.
Children like Eviana will benefit from donations made on Loud Shirt Day on Friday, September 17.
Money raised will go towards both The Hearing House and Southern Cochlear Implant Paediatric Programme to provide specialist therapy to children with cochlear implants.
Register your business for Loud Shirt Day at www.loudshirt.org.nz to be sent an information pack.
- © Fairfax NZ News
Denture Centre, 45 Clyde