Cochlear's Hearing Hero Award Goes To...

On behalf of all members of CiCircle, I would like to congratulate Miss Rachel Chaikof for winning Cochlear’s Hearing Hero award.

Rachel started advocating for others like herself at a very young age and has continued to devote much of her time to cochlear implant awareness. I can’t imagine having accomplished what she has in her short twenty three years. As a young college student, dealing with her own day to day hurdles, she still manages to dedicate time to CI awareness by maintaining cochlearimplantonline.com, moderating deafvillage.com, creating t-shirts, illustrating books, raising funds for various organizations, speaking to the public (not only in the US) and sharing her story. Along with everything else, Rachel continues to be an active member of the Cochlear Awareness Network.

The award is well deserved! As the winner, Rachel receives the opportunity to visit the Cochlear Americas headquarters in Denver, Colorado to share her experiences and meet with Cochlear executives and employees.

To read more about Rachel, visit her here.

Congratulations to all others that were nominated as well. Your devotion to the CI world is appreciated by many! More information regarding the Hearing Hero award can be found here, along with profiles of the other nominees.


...with love from the members of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Circle

Size comparison of Nucleus 5 and Nucleus Freedom BTEs

If you're an avid CI family blog reader, you may have seen this already. Landon's (a.k.a. Buzz's) mom, Jen, posted some nice pictures on her blog comparing the new Nucleus 5 with the older Nucleus Freedom sound processor. There are photos both on and off Landon's ear (he's about 3 1/2 years old, BTW). Check it out: Landon's New Ears are Here

Also, in case you missed it a few months ago, here is a (captioned!!) video comparison of the Nucleus 5 and Freedom sound processors reviewed by an audiologist who also happens to be Nucleus user.

Congratulations Val and Rachel AND New Youtube CI Channel

Congratulations to two CI Circle family members, Val Blakely and Rachel Chaikof who were recently nominated for a "Hearing Hero" award given to "someone who has dedicated their time to proactively educate others on how Advanced Hearing Solutions can dramatically improve the communication ability and quality of life for those impacted by a significant hearing loss."


Val Blakely: Val has two children with bilateral implants, and she always has an upbeat, positive attitude. She's a loving, patient mom, and her knowledge of CIs and hearing loss is amazing. She is constantly coming up with ideas to reach more parents of children with hearing loss to offer them options and hope.

Val volunteers a great deal of her time to on-line efforts. She writes a popular blog about her two kids with cochlear implants called deafkidscanhear.blogspot.com, she moderates the DeafVillage.com news aggregator site, and she comments frequently at the CI Circle Yahoo group for parents of kids with cochlear implants. Together with me and two other Cochlear parents she helps edit the CI Circle News blog (http://www.cicircle.blogspot.com/). Val also writes the Alabama blog for children with hearing loss with another mom (bamaears.blogspot.com) and often mentions cochlear implants on Facebook.

This is probably just some of what Val does -- she probably does a lot more I don't even know about! And she does it all without being pushy about implants, teaching or communication methodology or implant brand.

*AND*


Rachel Chaikof: I would like to nominate Rachel because she is an awesome role model for my son, Max who also uses a CI. Rachel's devotion to helping others learn about the option of listening and speaking and benefits of the Cochlear Implant is amazing. I have benefited from her website: http://cochlearimplantonline.com/site/immensely. I have learned so much that helps me directly impact my son's life. I also felt pride when she set out with her pals to create http://www.deafvillage.com/. I am in awe and amazement of her abilities, her talents, and her devotion to educating our world, and empowering those like my Max!

Recently, Rachel has undertaken a new endeavor. She has created the first official youtube cochlear implant channel, where she has just begun assembling an impressive collection of many of our Pediatric Cochlear Implant Circle kids- click here to meet our kids!

*Hats off to you both!*