Evianna Sandoval is a bubbly 5-year-old from Carpinteria who loves to dance.
"'Cause all you have to do is move your body," she said.
This little girl has a passion for dance and music but was born without the ability to hear.
"I could tell right away, as they put her on my chest. She had tiny, tiny ears. We called them peanut ears and no one at the hospital knew what to do because they hadn’t experienced it before," said Stephanie Sandoval, Evianna's mother.
Sandoval says her daughter was born with profound hearing loss caused by Microtia Atresia in both ears, which occurs in around one in 5,000 births in the U.S.
"The challenge was, how do we make sure you have typical development just like your sister," Sandoval continued.
At two months old, Evianna got a bone conduction cochlear implant called a Baha attached to her head by a headband, which allowed her to hear some things.
"Before, I could hear only talking. Now, I can hear everything!" Evianna said.
After another round of surgeries this summer, Evianna has a new implant called Cochlear™ Osia® System. This high-tech hearing system came out five years ago but wasn’t available to children under 12 until this year when the FDA lowered the age for implantation to include children over five.
Last week, Evianna's implants were activated and now she can clearly hear the music in her dance classes and so much more.
"You take for granted the things that we hear every day that she has never heard. She can now verbalize it and says, 'Mommy, I can hear footsteps in the hallway.' I didn’t know you couldn’t hear footsteps. Or, 'I can hear birds chipping, I’ve never heard that before.' We got in bed for the first time in five years and had a whisper conversation, and she said, 'I've never been able to hear whispers,'" Sandoval shared.
Evianna’s cochlear implants will grow with her, with the outside technology being upgraded over the years.
"Our most important job as a parent is to be their advocate. All the support is there is to just be an advocate for your child," Sandoval said.
Evianna’s audiologist, Dr. Frintner, encourages parents who think their child has hearing loss to get a referral to a doctor of audiology as soon as possible, as early detection and treatment is essential for development in young children.
