Bionic ears open world for Olivia

A bubbly young Featherston girl has a new lease on life due to having double cochlear implants and is looking forward to celebrating Loud Shirt Day with her classmates at Kahutara School.
Olivia Clark, 6, was born profoundly deaf but was so good at foxing her parents, Doug and Honor, and other family members that it was a year before they had any inkling she couldn't hear and a further five months before her deafness was confirmed.
Her mother said Olivia had compensated for her silent world by being more visually alert than most kids and it wasn't until they noticed she walked off as a toddler when spoken to, and failed to hear her gran tapping on the window of a ute she was playing in they realised she had a problem.
"She had foxed us big time."
Olivia's deafness disguise even went as far as being able to mouth "Mum, Mum, Mum".
The little girl was taken to a doctor who could find nothing physically wrong with her but sent her for hearing tests and it was then found she was profoundly deaf. Honor said as Olivia was her first child and there was no history of deafness in either her or her husband's family, the news had come as a great shock. "Because I was pregnant with Archie we wondered if our next child would have the same problem."
As it happened, Archie, and later little sister Rhiannon have no hearing problems.
Olivia was fitted with high-powered hearing aids that "didn't help" and although the young lass could hear sounds like dogs barking or trucks passing the farm gate, they did not help her speech.
A month before her second birthday, Olivia was given her first cochlear implant and the world, for her, took on a whole new dimension.
Honor recalls the moment her eldest child heard voices up close, and the joy that brought to them, as did Olivia's first really spoken word "hot".
The cost of the first implant was covered by the Government but the second bionic ear - as implants are sometimes called - was on the family, who didn't begrudge one cent of it as it allowed Olivia to gain even more of her hearing.
Since then, Olivia has started school and loves being part of the Kahutara School community. She speaks and spells well and is totally involved, even playing hockey - despite having to wear some external equipment and to have batteries replaced from time to time.
This week, Olivia decided her goal on leaving school was to become a professional tennis player.
That took her mother bysurprise as she would probably have thought a career in music would have fitted in more neatly and would also have greatly pleased her musical grandmother, Mary.
Loud Shirt Day will be held on September 17 as a way of making people aware of hearing problems and cochlear implants.
The pupils at Kahutara School are set to recognise the day and part of the package is to be a presentation made by a very special pupil - Olivia Clark.