Born Deaf, 11-Year-Old among Nation's Top Spellers
From: R&D Magazine - 05/24/20016

Making it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee is an amazing achievement for
any kid, but for 11-year-old Neil Maes, being born deaf made his journey
especially unlikely.

After receiving cochlear implants in both ears as a baby, he had to train his
brain to understand spoken words. It took countless hours of speech therapy.

The only assistance Neil requires is that the bee's pronouncer will speak
into a microphone that transmits an FM signal directly into his cochlear
implants. Similar to the technology he uses in school, it allows him to
filter out background noise and focus on each word.

Cochlear implants bypass the non-functioning parts of the ear by sending an
electrical signal directly to the hearing nerve. While speech, music and
other noises don't sound exactly like they do to a person with normal
hearing, the brain can, over time, learn to process those sounds in a similar
way.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2016/05/born-deaf-11-year-old-among-nations-top-spellers

Links:
Scripps National Spelling Bee
http://spellingbee.com

Neil Maes
https://secure.spellingbee.com/public/spellers/2016/213