Breaking the silence on hearing loss

Four-year-old Ariel Chew could not hear at birth, but now speaks English fluently; undergrad Jessica Liong, who wears hearing aids, was almost enrolled in a special needs school

- Stephanie Yeo

Ariel Chew's first word was "mama" at 16 months old. That is not unusual, except that she could not hear at birth.

She was three days old when she failed the universal newborn hearing screening test at Mount Alvernia Hospital.

At the time, her parents thought it was a glitch as they had no family history of hearing loss.

Two weeks later, though, Ariel failed a second hearing test.

At the National University Hospital (NUH), she was diagnosed with severe to profound hearing loss caused by a rare disorder called auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder, where the auditory nerve in the inner ear fails to transmit sound to the brain adequately and accurately.

About four in 1,000 babies in Singapore are born with significant hearing disabilities. At NUH, 80 to 90 per cent of its paediatric patients with hearing loss have parents with normal hearing, based on anecdotal experience.

Ariel's parents, both in their 30s, went through the cycle of shock, grief and uncertainty about their second child's future, but pressed on with a battery of tests to confirm the initial diagnosis.

At 13 months, Ariel underwent an eight-hour operation to fit cochlear implants in both ears. She cried when she heard her first sound a month later, after her sound processors were switched on, but her progress afterwards surpassed everyone's expectations.

Besides going for speech therapy weekly across six months, she had regular visits to her audiologist, but these decreased in frequency as her hearing and language skills improved.

At home, Ariel's mother, Ms Carolyn Koh, read her at least seven books a day. She also spoke to her daughter throughout the day, narrating whatever she was doing.

Ms Koh and her husband, lawyer Jeremiah Chew, also have a son aged seven and another daughter who is seven months old.