Miss-Delectable
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http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...FCBD1962F81546208625700D001C98E3?OpenDocument
Campbell "Cami" Elizabeth Garland volunteers at her former school to help hearing-impaired children to learn to speak full sentences.
"I thought it would be nice to help people who don't know how to talk," Garland, 19, said during a break at the school, St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf in Chesterfield.
Garland was born with profound binaural sensorineural hearing loss, something doctors diagnosed when she was about 4 months old. If an airplane took off next to her, it would sound like shuffling papers.
Doctors told her parents she would never learn to talk without attending a special school. They said she would never go to a regular school.
Now a senior with over a 4.0 grade point average, Garland will graduate tonight from St. Joseph Academy in Frontenac. She is the only deaf student out of 630 girls at the private Roman Catholic school. She has been accepted at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., where she plans to study archaeology and history.
Garland is both determined and driven to succeed, said her former principal, Sister Joyce Buckler, who now serves as interim principal at St. Joseph Institute. "Little kids relate to her," the principal said. "Our children are very interested in knowing what older deaf children are doing."
Barb Meyers, who teaches in the preschool room at the institute where Garland volunteers, remembers when Garland first arrived. The Garland family had moved to St. Louis from Baton Rouge, La., just so Cami Garland, then 4, could attend St. Joseph Institute.
She wore hearing aids. She spoke no words. She threw tantrums. She screamed when she needed to communicate, Meyers said.
Meyers would send a journal home with Garland. Meyers would write a sentence and draw a picture of something Garland did at school. Garland's parents would point to the drawings and ask her about them.
At first Garland responded with "abba abba." After a few months when she saw a picture of a ghost, she said "Boo." When she saw a witch, she said, "Hee, hee."
Any degree of hearing loss makes it difficult for a child to learn to read, write and talk.
It is not enough for a hearing-impaired child to learn just words. The child also needs to learn to use words in sentences and to visualize what words mean. Garland recently held a toy hamburger and toy french fries in front of a 3-year-old at St. Joseph Institute. She asked the boy, "Would you like a hamburger or french fries?" He said, "I want a hamburger." She handed him the toy.
Meyers said if a child says ice cream, she encourages the child to say what kind of ice cream. She said children who lag behind their peers who command large vocabularies cannot afford to play in silence. She asks parents to help their children to learn about words.
If someone knocked on the door, Garland's mother told her someone was knocking on the door and asked her if she could hear the sound. If a dog barked, Garland's mother said the dog was barking and asked if her daughter could hear it.
With the help of her parents and teachers, Garland learned many words, and language gave her power.
Most students with hearing disabilities used to stay at St. Joseph through the eighth grade. Some still do. Garland, however, knew enough to transfer to a regular school, St. Luke's School in Richmond Heights, in the third grade. In the fourth grade she moved to her parish school, Our Lady of the Pillar in Creve Coeur. She graduated from that school in the eighth grade at the top of her class.
Along the way, she developed a passion for reading and for books. She sang and danced. Ten years ago she was chosen at the age of 8 to appear in a United Way video that mentioned successful students from St. Joseph Institute. Garland gave speeches at the time in which she said she wanted to become a pediatrician, a writer and a ballerina.
Garland's world changed in sixth grade when doctors implanted 22 electrodes in her head behind the ear. The device, called a cochlear implant, stimulates the auditory nerve to restore partial hearing.
For the first time Garland could hear the rustle of leaves, the swish of a dishwasher, the difference between "time" and "dime."
Many of the preschoolers at St. Joseph Institute already have cochlear implants. While as many as a half-million to a million people in the United States have a severe or profound hearing loss, about 31,000 have a cochlear implant. Two years ago, about 750 children under the age of 3 got cochlear implants, up from about 500 the previous year.
More young children have undergone the brain surgery as understanding has grown that the most critical period for learning language is from birth to age 3. Researchers say that when hearing-impaired children learn appropriate language skills, it can save more than $400,000 a child in special education costs and related services later on.
Two summers ago, Garland attended a wilderness camp and canoed in Canada for three weeks.
At her high school she worked for the school newspaper, although she prefers creative writing. She also became a member of the National Honor Society.
Last fall she wrote in her application to Yale that meeting new people and rigorous academics are parts of her life she loves.
"I'm confident because of all the obstacles I've already overcome, that I can make it at Yale," Garland wrote. She recently learned that she had won $2,000 from the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
Stephanie Garland, a math consultant for a national publishing company, said that with her daughter's graduation and acceptance to Yale, "all I do is cry. I'm so proud of her."
Cami Garland said: "I'm nervous, but I'm ready. I could not be here without my teachers and my parents."
Campbell "Cami" Elizabeth Garland volunteers at her former school to help hearing-impaired children to learn to speak full sentences.
"I thought it would be nice to help people who don't know how to talk," Garland, 19, said during a break at the school, St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf in Chesterfield.
Garland was born with profound binaural sensorineural hearing loss, something doctors diagnosed when she was about 4 months old. If an airplane took off next to her, it would sound like shuffling papers.
Doctors told her parents she would never learn to talk without attending a special school. They said she would never go to a regular school.
Now a senior with over a 4.0 grade point average, Garland will graduate tonight from St. Joseph Academy in Frontenac. She is the only deaf student out of 630 girls at the private Roman Catholic school. She has been accepted at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., where she plans to study archaeology and history.
Garland is both determined and driven to succeed, said her former principal, Sister Joyce Buckler, who now serves as interim principal at St. Joseph Institute. "Little kids relate to her," the principal said. "Our children are very interested in knowing what older deaf children are doing."
Barb Meyers, who teaches in the preschool room at the institute where Garland volunteers, remembers when Garland first arrived. The Garland family had moved to St. Louis from Baton Rouge, La., just so Cami Garland, then 4, could attend St. Joseph Institute.
She wore hearing aids. She spoke no words. She threw tantrums. She screamed when she needed to communicate, Meyers said.
Meyers would send a journal home with Garland. Meyers would write a sentence and draw a picture of something Garland did at school. Garland's parents would point to the drawings and ask her about them.
At first Garland responded with "abba abba." After a few months when she saw a picture of a ghost, she said "Boo." When she saw a witch, she said, "Hee, hee."
Any degree of hearing loss makes it difficult for a child to learn to read, write and talk.
It is not enough for a hearing-impaired child to learn just words. The child also needs to learn to use words in sentences and to visualize what words mean. Garland recently held a toy hamburger and toy french fries in front of a 3-year-old at St. Joseph Institute. She asked the boy, "Would you like a hamburger or french fries?" He said, "I want a hamburger." She handed him the toy.
Meyers said if a child says ice cream, she encourages the child to say what kind of ice cream. She said children who lag behind their peers who command large vocabularies cannot afford to play in silence. She asks parents to help their children to learn about words.
If someone knocked on the door, Garland's mother told her someone was knocking on the door and asked her if she could hear the sound. If a dog barked, Garland's mother said the dog was barking and asked if her daughter could hear it.
With the help of her parents and teachers, Garland learned many words, and language gave her power.
Most students with hearing disabilities used to stay at St. Joseph through the eighth grade. Some still do. Garland, however, knew enough to transfer to a regular school, St. Luke's School in Richmond Heights, in the third grade. In the fourth grade she moved to her parish school, Our Lady of the Pillar in Creve Coeur. She graduated from that school in the eighth grade at the top of her class.
Along the way, she developed a passion for reading and for books. She sang and danced. Ten years ago she was chosen at the age of 8 to appear in a United Way video that mentioned successful students from St. Joseph Institute. Garland gave speeches at the time in which she said she wanted to become a pediatrician, a writer and a ballerina.
Garland's world changed in sixth grade when doctors implanted 22 electrodes in her head behind the ear. The device, called a cochlear implant, stimulates the auditory nerve to restore partial hearing.
For the first time Garland could hear the rustle of leaves, the swish of a dishwasher, the difference between "time" and "dime."
Many of the preschoolers at St. Joseph Institute already have cochlear implants. While as many as a half-million to a million people in the United States have a severe or profound hearing loss, about 31,000 have a cochlear implant. Two years ago, about 750 children under the age of 3 got cochlear implants, up from about 500 the previous year.
More young children have undergone the brain surgery as understanding has grown that the most critical period for learning language is from birth to age 3. Researchers say that when hearing-impaired children learn appropriate language skills, it can save more than $400,000 a child in special education costs and related services later on.
Two summers ago, Garland attended a wilderness camp and canoed in Canada for three weeks.
At her high school she worked for the school newspaper, although she prefers creative writing. She also became a member of the National Honor Society.
Last fall she wrote in her application to Yale that meeting new people and rigorous academics are parts of her life she loves.
"I'm confident because of all the obstacles I've already overcome, that I can make it at Yale," Garland wrote. She recently learned that she had won $2,000 from the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
Stephanie Garland, a math consultant for a national publishing company, said that with her daughter's graduation and acceptance to Yale, "all I do is cry. I'm so proud of her."
Cami Garland said: "I'm nervous, but I'm ready. I could not be here without my teachers and my parents."
It’s the quality of a child’s nurturing that molds their adult achievements, not the possession of two fully functioning ears.
