Transcript from West Australian newspaper article by Gareth Parker July 2008 - courtesy Jeff Flood, CAN member WA
Implant opened a brand new world of wonders for Pierce
The boy who won hearts in 2001 is doing well. Gareth Parker reports
Playing in the front yard of his home in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, Pierce Siddans appears to be a patient little boy.
While his four-year-old brother Alek climbs on and around him like a monkey, nine-year-old Pierce chats happily about the tricks he likes to perform on his bicycle, the garden he wants to plant and how he gets into trouble when he plays too much Nintendo.
It is almost seven years since he captured the hearts of West Australians when a picture of him wide-eyed with amazement was published on the front page of The West Australian.
Photographer Michael O'Brien caught the wonder of then two-year-old Pierce, who was born profoundly deaf, first hearing sound after having a cochlear implant.
He doesn't get embarrassed about it, but he never has.
Now, sitting on a swing, and with an intense interest in video games, Pierce is like any other nine-year-old.
His speech is a touch difficult to understand perhaps, particularly to untrained or unfamiliar ears. Alek has no trouble but, as his mum Melanie explains, Pierce doesn't mind.
"He doesn't get embarrassed about the fact that not everyone understands him," she said. "He will just keep talking and talking until you understand what he's talking about. He's never been particularly worried about it, it doesn't inhibit him at all."
Pierce has overcome a lot to be a normal child. He was born with what is known as bilateral profound sensor-neural hearing, a nerve defect in each ear that before his implant prevented him from hearing anything but the loudest sound such as an aircraft on the tarmac.
He is also mildly autistic, something the doctors did not discover until after his cochlear implant was switched on.
The two conditions have meant hundreds of sessions with speech pathologists, occupational therapists and other specialists, and the development of his language skills has been delayed.
But it hasn't stopped him attending mainstream schools - North Fremantle Primary and now Eastwood Primary outside Melbourne - where he loves mathematics, reading and art. He is also learning Auslan sign language, meaning he can communicate equally well with the deaf.
Unless something goes wrong, the implant in Pierce's cochlear is expected to last for ever.
The battery in the external unit, about the size of a "pinkie" fingernail, lasts three or four days and he has no worries wearing it all over his left ear.
"He doesn't get embarrassed about it, and he never has," Mrs Siddans said. "I think that's because we've never treated him as if he was a deaf child, or never treated him as if he's a child with autism. To his parents and friends, he's not someone with hearing impairment or autism. He's just a normal kid."