Naperville girl to make sure Congress hears her

[title1parent]

www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=293538&src=76

Naperville girl to make sure Congress hears her
12-year-old overcomes deafness, pushes for classroom acoustics improvements
By Melissa Jenco | Daily Herald 5/14/09

Sixth-grader Nicole Hubert has cochlear implants to overcome her deafness, yet still sometimes has trouble hearing her classmates.

Friday, she'll make sure lawmakers have no trouble hearing her.

The 12-year-old Naperville girl will speak on Capitol Hill as part of a panel put together by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association urging lawmakers to support improvements to classroom acoustics.

"What we're hoping to do is raise awareness of this isolation and barrier to ... language and communication," Nicole's father Greg Hubert said.

Nicole's deafness was caused by genetic mutations and discovered when she was 13 months old. When she was 2, she got her first cochlear implant and has since gotten a second.

With the help of private auditory verbal therapist Lynn Wood, she has learned to listen and speak.

While her hearing isn't quite as clear as the average person, Nicole can talk on the phone, listen to music, and has always attended school with her hearing peers. She is currently a sixth-grader at Hill Middle School.

However, being in a classroom presents its own set of challenges based on the acoustics of the room.

Greg said noise in the classroom, such as ventilation systems or fans, can interfere with students' ability to hear the teacher - an issue for all students, but one that is more severe for Nicole because of her hearing deficit.

She uses an FM system - basically a radio transmitter and receiver - in which the teacher's voice is transmitted directly into one of her cochlear implants. But the background noise still interferes, not only with her ability to hear the teacher but also her classmates as they discuss the lesson at hand.

"When the teacher is wearing an FM I can't hear all the students so I don't know what they're talking about so I get a little bit lost," she said.

Greg said this can be an isolating experience for his daughter and becomes "not just an academic issue but it's a social-emotional issue, it's a language development issue."

Nicole will share her experiences with lawmakers as part of a panel on Capitol Hill Friday for a discussion called, "Classroom Noise and Acoustics Briefing: The Unseen Barrier to Learning."

She said she hopes to get across, "how hard it is for everybody to hear and how they can help."

For example, when Nicole attended May Watts Elementary, an acoustical consultant lessened background noise by constructing a shield for the classroom ventilator and bringing in a quieter fan.

Legislation has been introduced that would allow federal grants to be used for these types of improvements and the panel hopes to raise lawmakers' awareness of their necessity as well as other legal protections.

Greg would like to see these fixes become integrated into building design, not just looked at as an add-on.

Friday will be Nicole's first trip to the Capitol and her father hopes it will be a good experience beyond the outcome of the legislation.

"More than anything else we also hope it continues to help her own self confidence," Greg said. "It's a tremendous thing for a sixth-grader to get in front of a group of congressional leaders, congressional aides, to join professional people in the field."

[title1parent]

www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/1578645,hubert-deaf-panel-dc_na051709.article

Napeville girl makes her voice heard
Nicole and her father testify for helping hearing impaired students

May 18, 2009

By RUTH MOON For The Sun
At 12, Naperville resident Nicole Hubert is making her voice heard around the nation.

Nicole, who has been deaf since birth, traveled to Washington, D.C., Friday with her father, Greg, as part of a panel presenting information on classroom acoustics to a group of about 75 legislators on Capitol Hill. She also met with local congresswoman Judy Biggert.

"I was a little bit nervous, but it wasn't too bad," said Nicole, who spoke on the panel about her hearing difficulties and her experiences at school. "I've never really done it before, and it was kind of weird having a bunch of people watching me."

Nicole said her biggest hearing challenge in the classroom is listening to her classmates speak. Her hearing device is equipped with a receiver; the teacher uses one microphone and there is one to pass to students. But often student conversation moves too quickly for students to use the microphone, and Nicole misses the conversation.

Nicole has a cochlear implant, a device surgically planted behind her ear that transmits signals, processes speech and picks up sound from the environment. Around 15,500 children had received cochlear implants by the end of 2006, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Hill Middle School, where Nicole is a sixth-grader, like most schools in the district, is not outfitted well for hearing-impaired students, said Nicole's father Greg Hubert, who is working as a full-time advocate for deaf students.

There are two structural items that cause noise problems for deaf and hearing-impaired students, Greg said. Unit heating and ventilation systems contain fans inside the unit and are noisy to use, and box fans used on warm days are also noisy. In addition, classrooms are usually designed with a small amount of absorptive material so sound echoes off walls, adding to hearing problems.

The ideal solution is for schools to be built with the help of an acoustics expert with hard of hearing students in mind, but there are also relatively low-cost solutions to the problems in already existing buildings, Greg said. In Nicole's previous school — May Watts Elementary — the school built an acoustical shield around the ventilator for somewhere around $1,500, although Greg didn't know the total amount.

"By no stretch of the imagination is (that) an exorbitant amount when you consider the fact that children with profound hearing loss like Nicole would typically go to a special education program that would cost the district 30 or 40 thousand (dollars) per year," Greg said.

He is hopeful future similar changes will equip rooms to be good learning environments for children who are hard of hearing, as well as for students who are easily distracted by noise or who are learning English.

"If we have 60 kids in our district with hearing loss — and last year we heard there were 19 out of the 20 elementary schools with at least one child with hearing loss — why can't we solve the problem in a couple of classrooms so those kids with the most severe needs might have a classroom available to address that problem?" Greg said.

Friday's event was sponsored by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and was the first one of its kind, said Joseph Cerquone, director of public relations for the association. Nicole was one of around six panelists, he said.

"We welcome the opportunity ... to involve people like Nicole and her dad, because that's the human element to what the issue is all about," Cerquone said. "Whenever you can have regular folks telling their story, it adds a powerful message for what you're trying to accomplish."