Friendship often transforms into a bond where spoken words are no longer
needed to communicate. For two Juniper Elementary School students, their
close friendship would have been encased in silence, if not for a modern device
that allows the two boys to hear sound, despite both being classified as profoundly
deaf.
Alex Schoenfeld, 11, who lost his hearing at age 2 from an undetermined cause, and
Hunter Lively, 8, who lost his hearing as a baby, each had a cochlear implant surgically
placed in his inner ear when he was a toddler. The device requires Alex and Hunter
to carry a pack around their waist to hold the battery, speech processor and transmitter. A
wire runs from the waist-pack to a speaker device located near the ear, which gives the boys a
sense of hearing. “The wires rip all the time. Kids rip them. They just break all the
time,” said Diana Tillenburg, Alex’s legal guardian, who has cared for Alex since he was born
because of his mother’s battle with cancer since 1992.
Quota of Central Oregon, which helps people with speech and hearing disabilities and also assists
disadvantaged women and children, is hoping to raise enough funds at a Dec. 5 holiday event to
purchase Alex and Hunter new speech processors. The new processors would eliminate the need
for the long wire that runs from their waist-pack to their ear. The wire that connects the
implant at the ear to the computerized electronic device at the waist has created problems at
school and home. It limits their ability to freely play sports they enjoy, such as football
and baseball, said Hunter’s mother, Dawnmarie Lively. The battery and sound level, which
has to be manually set and charged every night before school, is unreliable, and according to
Tillenburg, Alex is forced to rely heavily on an interpreter during classes.
“The implants are nearly four years behind in technology,” said Charlene Clevenger, director of
service for Quota of Central Oregon.
The organization stepped in to help after members learned the families were trying to raise funds
on their own. “We heard the families were trying to get funding and were not successful,” said
Clevenger. “We wanted to see how we could be hands-on and decided as a group to hold a
holiday auction for the two little boys,” she said.
“It’s smaller, it’s lighter, it’s sleek,” said Lively. “As a parent, I want the best education for
my child, and if technology is going to help him, that’s what I want.” “With the new one, I
hope he can focus on the teacher, instead of the interpreter,” said Tillenburg.
Although the new devices will help their hearing and allow them to engage in sports without
worrying about ripping the wires, it will not completely alleviate the need for the boys to use
sign language and interpreters. Alex and Hunter use both sign language and speech to
communicate with one another. When the two best friends are together, they prefer to use
sign language to communicate, joke and sometimes outwit their parents. “They know it
(sign language) really well, too well, cause they can outdo us. When they get at the table
they do their little secrets,” said Tillenburg.
Other children at school have taken an interest in learning sign language to communicate with Alex
and Hunter and have enrolled in an early morning sign language class. Terri Wheeler, the
teacher for the deaf at Juniper Elementary School, works with Alex and Hunter to improve their
sign language, reading and writing skills. She also teaches the early morning sign language class
to more than 35 students at the school. “We call her Terri the great,” said Hunter. “She
has helped me a lot,” said Alex. “They are both very bright kids. Hearing is their only
disability,” Wheeler said.
The cochlear implants are not without controversy. Some in the deaf community, Lively explained,
“believe we are deaf and this is who we are; we don’t need to hear to be whole. … I don’t share
this view,” she said, “I don’t see hearing as a privilege, but something we all should have.” As
for Alex and Hunter, being deaf is not hindering their dreams for the future. When Alex grows up,
he said he wants to be either a rock ’n’ roll music teacher or a karate instructor. Hunter said, without
hesitation, that he wants to be a baseball player.
— Leah Johnston
