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Everyone Has a Story: Deaf Egg Harbor Township teen considers hearing implants a useful tool - pressofAtlanticCity.com: Atlantic County News
For college freshman Christina Rizzetta, listening closely in class is a well-developed habit.
The 18-year-old student at York College in York, Pa., who graduated last June from Egg Harbor Township High School in the top seven percent of her class, was born profoundly deaf and hears with the help of cochlear implants. She recently won a Hearing Loss Association of New Jersey $1,000 scholarship.
The implants are surgically attached to the ears' internal cochlea, and also have an exterior portion that looks like a hearing aid. They are "almost like a computer that helps me hear," she said.
"People think it fixes everything, but it doesn't," she said. She has to listen very carefully, and supplements her hearing with reading lips. "In the classroom I'm in the front row, paying attention very closely."
Rizzetta got her first implant soon after being diagnosed as deaf, at age two-and-a-half, she said. Her parents, Gerri and Anthony Rizzetta, let her decide if she wanted a second at age 12, and she did.
She said she understands why some in the deaf community prefer not to get implants, but to embrace their deafness and create a deaf culture. But she has made a different decision. "It's a hearing world we are living in," she said.
"I feel like being deaf is a part of me, but not all (of) who I am."
She doesn't tell people she is deaf when she first meets them, she said. "I let them get to know me first, before I tell them."
For college freshman Christina Rizzetta, listening closely in class is a well-developed habit.
The 18-year-old student at York College in York, Pa., who graduated last June from Egg Harbor Township High School in the top seven percent of her class, was born profoundly deaf and hears with the help of cochlear implants. She recently won a Hearing Loss Association of New Jersey $1,000 scholarship.
The implants are surgically attached to the ears' internal cochlea, and also have an exterior portion that looks like a hearing aid. They are "almost like a computer that helps me hear," she said.
"People think it fixes everything, but it doesn't," she said. She has to listen very carefully, and supplements her hearing with reading lips. "In the classroom I'm in the front row, paying attention very closely."
Rizzetta got her first implant soon after being diagnosed as deaf, at age two-and-a-half, she said. Her parents, Gerri and Anthony Rizzetta, let her decide if she wanted a second at age 12, and she did.
She said she understands why some in the deaf community prefer not to get implants, but to embrace their deafness and create a deaf culture. But she has made a different decision. "It's a hearing world we are living in," she said.
"I feel like being deaf is a part of me, but not all (of) who I am."
She doesn't tell people she is deaf when she first meets them, she said. "I let them get to know me first, before I tell them."