Perseverance reaps rewards
Barry was born with a hearing loss which wasn't discovered until he was 2½. It took another 18 months before he was fitted with hearing aids. His mother spent hours teaching him to speak clearly. Barry tells his story.
Barry Pratt March 2008
Download a copy of Barry's story
I was born in 1954 and spent the first 10 years of my life on a dairy farm at Rous (near Alstonville, NSW). I am the eldest in a family of three boys and am the only one who is deaf because my mother had Toxemia during her pregnancy. However, my deafness was not discovered until I was 2½ and I only received my first hearing aid at four. My mother, who lives with me since my father passed away in 1983, was a Primary School Teacher. She spent hundreds of hours teaching me to speak with very good clarity and diction. This enabled me to live as a hearing deaf person and I fitted in with the thinking of the time - that all deaf children should be aural and not use sign language.
I went to State Public schools at Rous, Goonellabah and Richmond River and while I gained my School Certificate it was with some difficulty, always having to overcome my hearing loss. I suffered persecution from some students and a couple of Senior Teachers, who obviously should have known a lot better, yet to be fair the majority were respectful of my plight.
My earliest organisational group was with the Boy Scout movement which, in the beginning I found difficult yet it gave me a wonderful practical grasp of life skills.
Sydney was too stressful for me
At the end of 1970 after leaving School, I was able to secure employment and first worked in a Builders Hardware store for approximately 9 years. Later I spent about two years in the Funeral Industry in Sydney as a Resident Officer, but the big city was too stressful for me, a country person. Telephone calls had become difficult because, due to lack of encryption, I had to cope with various frequencies coming through on the phone. I was out of work for some months doing odd jobs and finally got a part time position at the local Regional Library. Eventually this became full time and now, over 25 years later, I still hold the job.
I have close affiliations with the Anglican Church in which I am a rostered Eucharist Assistant. Over thirty years ago I was in Rotaract which was an excellent grounding in interacting with people of my age group and helping out with the club and other community projects. I joined the local Rotary Club nearly five years ago and have made a very respectable contribution to good programming and planning. I also play Lawn Bowls on a social basis although not competition, but this may change in the future. (I still need to get used to hearing and listening on the Greens.) I am single and never married.
My path to receiving a Cochlear implant.
In 1959 my hearing loss was 63dB and this progressively worsened over the years. My right ear now has just 20% but I can stand amplification to 76% which is very good for my level of hearing loss.
By 1996, I was troubled with infections in my left ear and this caused my hearing to get progressively worse until I had only 6% residual hearing in that ear. I had substandard hearing aids for some time and now have a superior one for my right ear. I must point out that until I was 35 I had the old cord body worn aid for my right ear only. I tried binaural BTE aids but my left ear never really accepted the sounds.
Early in 2007 I saw a very professional Audiologist who tested my hearing properly for the first time since early tests done by the National Acoustic Laboratories. She discovered my profound lack of hearing and put me forward as a candidate for a Cochlear Implant.
I was mildly shocked yet well understood the scenario facing me. I was straining to hear people and relying on instinct to keep safe. After exhaustive, yet of course necessary, tests I was found to be suitable for an implant. I accepted the challenge because I knew it would be of immense long term future benefit to me and help me cope and maintain a respectable quality of life.
I had the implant on the 27th June 2007 and the "Switch On" on the 9th and 10th July 2007. At first it was a Herculean struggle just to grasp the real dynamics of understanding language, but over time sound has become more fluid with consistent tone. I still have trouble hearing the radio from a distance, yet with intent listening I can hear more. I feel my listening skills will improve as my Cochlear implant takes over from the hearing aid in my other ear.
I first used the phone in 1974 when my then employer encouraged me to learn it as a life skill as well as a business tool, and I have never regretted the communication ability this has given me. I have yet to really master the phone with my Cochlear Implant, but I can hold a reasonably comfortable conversation with my Hearing Aid.
My driving is safer because I can hear more sounds like the clicking of traffic indicators and engine noise. Environmental sounds are coming through better. A Kookaburra sounded like a Warbler at first, but now it is more the way I remember it. Television is easier to hear when I'm watching the excellent newsreaders we have on Australian networks but I still prefer to watch general programs with the assistance of captions.
I found early mappings hard, yet did manage a very good chart of progress. I was very impressed with my CI Specialist who was very positive about my progress - from the 6% understanding of speech without visual clues to 36% in just six months. The Clinicians who worked through my new experience with me were a great consolation.
For me at work, wearing the BTE processor is so much better than wearing the body worn configuration. Mostly I drive around the Regional Libraries delivering book stock, loans and such like, as well as Clerical duties and the cords get in the way.
I do find that because people can see my Cochlear Implant they have a much better grasp that I am in fact deaf and with this awareness, those who've know me a long time, realise the extra efforts I have put in over many decades.
I am proud to wear my processor
Of course I am proud and not embarrassed to wear my processor. I do have self esteem issues in some areas, but as I am able to carry out every day tasks with respectable ease for a hearing impaired person, my esteem is picking up. I still get tired at times, especially when driving so I take the breaks recommended by RTA.
I have had to be realistic about my limitations, persevere and be patient with the learning process. Only once did I feel like giving up, even though I took quite a time to consider what I had gone through and future consequences. I comforted myself that this is an outstanding opportunity to stabilise my hearing in a more balanced sense and that I would be isolated and lost if I gave up. But I also felt I would have let my mother down since she put in so much effort early in my life to help me learn to speak clearly. My attitude to life is that I am unable to accept Deaf Culture as I feel my life has been enriched by the hearing world of human interaction as I have described.