Ava and Brodie Given the Best Possible Start in Life

Troy and Jade Klante welcomed their firstborn child, Ava Madison, into the world on the 25^th of November 2010. She was a perfect baby and although she failed the newborn screening test, they didn’t start to worry until she was 5 weeks old and failed further testing with the CAFHS nurse.

Ava was diagnosed with a profound bilateral hearing loss when she was 7 weeks old, and life changed dramatically. The Klante’s live in Wudinna, a small farming town on the Eyre Peninsula approximately 600kms from Adelaide. “We started travelling to Adelaide a fair bit for various appointments, and it was all very overwhelming,’ says Ava’s mother Jade.  “We were still coming to terms with the diagnosis and were having to make all these decisions, such as which early intervention provider to choose. We met with them all but there was something about the Cora Barclay Centre (First Voice South Australia centre) that we liked and we went with that gut instinct, which I’m so glad we did as it was the best decision we could have made.”

Ava began Skype lessons with her therapist, and saw her in person when in Adelaide for other appointments. She received bilateral cochlear implants in October 2011 and was ‘switched on’ at the start of November. In the six months since her switch on, she has progressed quickly and is now saying lots of different words and starting to put words together. She loves music and has a wonderful cheeky personality. This is all because of her amazing therapist Niva and the support she has given to Jade and Troy to help them teach Ava.

Ava’s brother Brodie was born in March 2012 and was diagnosed as profoundly deaf at the age of two weeks. Jade said that “while it was very hard to hear those words again, we see what Ava has achieved and know that Brodie will do the same. The fear of the unknown is gone because we know that with help from the Cora Barclay Centre, both our children will go on to lead productive normal lives and do whatever they wish to achieve in the future.”