Kaitlyn is a 20-year-old actor and theatre student from London who was born profoundly deaf. She’s had cochlear implants to help with her hearing since she was three but the implants are far from a complete fix.
In an effort to improve the lives of children and young people with similar hearing difficulties, Kaitlyn has been involved in testing and developing a Virtual Reality gaming trial that is intended to help use both ears (BEARS) together, to train listeners to better locate sounds. This is something that children and young people with cochlear implants find difficult. The BEARS suite of games includes a variety of immersive, 3D sound and vision experiences, such as target practice, music games and serving customers in a busy cafe.
She explains: “Cochlear implants are amazing but I don’t hear what a hearing person hears. I have to work incredibly hard to lip read or find a visual way of communicating, such as British Sign Language.”
Kaitlyn is now hoping to help a generation of D/deaf children and young people thanks to her involvement in an innovative new Virtual Reality medical trial.
“It can be challenging growing up being deaf. Lots of everyday situations can be a struggle, from playing sport to crossing the road.
“Even when you’ve had positive experiences at school with lots of support and D/deaf friends, conversations can be difficult and exhausting. You can’t work out where voices are coming from and by the time you’ve found who’s speaking you’ve missed the first half of what they said.”
“With cochlear implants, you’re constantly hearing new sounds that you either haven’t noticed before or just haven’t been tuned into. It can be quite scary hearing a new sound and thinking ‘should I be worried or is that okay?’ Finding ways to improve your ability to identify sounds is so important.”
Funded and supported by the NIHR and led by Deborah Vickers from the University of Cambridge and Dan Jiang from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, the project brings together speech and language therapists, surgeons, audio engineers, audiologists and children and young people using cochlear implants to create games.
