Deaf boy chases spelling success
As he walked out of his elementary school last week, fifth-grader Neil Maes heard the clapping from his fellow pupils lining both sides of the hallways. He heard them cheer and yell his name, and he heard them wish him luck as he headed off to compete in the National Spelling Bee, which starts today in National Harbor, Maryland.
That the shy 11-year-old from Belton, South Carolina can hear anything at all is a testament to technology, to a never-quit attitude and to faith, say his parents, Christy, a preschool teacher, and Peter, an aircraft mechanic.
The Maeses, who found out that their son was severely hearingimpaired just days after he was born, have been working non-stop since then to help him have hearing that’s as close to normal as possible.
Cochlear implants have allowed Neil not only to hear but to take part fully in the exceedingly competitive annual spelling showdown.
‘‘We wanted Neil to hear the birds, the water running, the winds in the trees,’’ his mother says.
‘‘My goal was for him to reach his potential, no matter what it was. It turned good.’’
Neil started speech therapy as a 6-month-old and had his first implant at 11 months. His ability to speak clearly and hear as well as he does is not just a result of medical advances, but of the fierce determination he and his parents have shown to make the technology work for them.
As a third-grader, Neil entered the school spelling bee as a bit of a lark and won. At the regionals that year, he came second, and he made it one of his goals to win the regional competition. But when he wrote that goal down, he misspelled ‘‘regional’’. out to be pretty
Neil won his school bee this year and then won the regional competition to make it to the national finals.
The word reader at the bee uses an FM system that sends the word to a receiver located on the back of Neil’s head. It is then transmitted to the cochlear implant.
If the method is unique, the end result is the same – Neil hears the word and has to spell it correctly. He has been practising with his mother for months, and admits he’s a perfectionist.
‘‘If I ask him to spell a hundred words, he’s not happy unless he gets a hundred right,’’ she says.