A 2-year-old girl in Kansas is now able to hear her loved ones and the world around her thanks to cochlear implants.
Mavis Malone was born with a genetic defect that left her with profound hearing loss, CBS News reported.
For children with the condition, acting early to treat it was important, the Cochlear website explained.
“Research shows that children who are implanted early can learn to speak faster than those implanted later in life. In fact, performance scores in children implanted younger are closer to scores of normal hearing children,” the site read.
Mavis recently underwent a four-hour surgery to have the devices put in both her ears that would deliver sound directly to her auditory nerve.
The implant uses a sound processor that “captures sound signals and sends them to a receiver implanted under the skin behind the ear,” according to the Mayo Clinic’s website.
The site continued:
The receiver sends the signals to electrodes implanted in the snail-shaped inner ear (cochlea). The signals stimulate the auditory nerve, which then directs them to the brain. The brain interprets those signals as sounds, though these sounds won’t be just like normal hearing.
Video footage of the moment Mavis heard her mom, Casey Cain Malone, for the first time showed the 2-year-old overcome with emotion.
“Can you hear mama? Mama?” Casey asked her daughter, who reacted instantly to her voice.
Moments later, the little girl covered her face as her mother wrapped her arms around her.
“There’s just that split second right before she covers them that I felt like she wanted to cry like, ‘Ooh I heard,’ you know?” Casey said.
Now, Mavis can understand her mother without using sign language, and taking trips to the park with her brothers would never be the same.
“I’m happy that my sister can hear and I love her,” one of the boys said.
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