mobanmarketWINGDALE, NY — Joshua Romeo, a 15-year-old Dover High School student, has his sites set on going to an Ivy League school and getting a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and working one day at NASA or SpaceX.
Outside the classroom, he has participated and thrived in such sports as baseball, cross country and track and field.
Click Here: cheap converse classic chuck shoes
All that sounds very normal for a teenager, except for the fact that Romeo was born profoundly deaf.
Find out what's happening in Mid Hudson Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The Wingdale resident received his first cochlear implant when he was 13 months old.
He got his second implant in the fourth grade — an event he called “a miracle.”
Find out what's happening in Mid Hudson Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“I believe, both of them were miracles,” Romeo told Patch during a phone interview. “You’d be surprised how much it changed when I was able to hear in both ears.
“It opened a lot more possibilities,” he said. “It made it easier to hear the environment. It made life easier, because there were things I could never hear.”
Since receiving his implants, Romeo said he has excelled in the classroom and his extracurricular activities.
The Cochlear Foundation, which aims to raise awareness of hearing loss and help more people around the world access life-changing hearing treatment, chose the teenager to be one of its National Inspirers, so he can share his story with others who have hearing loss.
Romeo said an inspirer is someone who represents the implanted deaf world and can show how people can achieve their dreams.
“They show how revolutionary the technology is,” he said, and how it allows a person to live a full life.
The teen said his implants have allowed him to succeed in school, something he thought wouldn’t have been possible without the implants.
“It has helped me a lot in being able to understand in school and take in information and rise above others,” Romeo said.
Importantly, the cochlear implants made it possible for him to participate in extracurricular activities, such as baseball and track and field, where having the ability to communicate with the teammates and the coaches was vital.
Dr. Michelle L. Kraskin, who is with Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, is Romeo’s audiologist.
She calls the teen a really remarkable young man who is “really going somewhere.”
Kraskin explained to Patch that a cochlear implant is more than just a hearing aid.
A hearing aid amplifies sound, she said, while the cochlear implant acts as the nerve, making it possible for the signal to get to the brain.
“It is an electronic device that improves the hearing of people who have inner ear damage and are not able to hear without hearing aids,” Kraskin said.
She said the technology has changed over the years, with devices now able to stream music, answer phone calls and do it all wirelessly through a bluetooth connection.
“In terms of it being a miracle,” as Romeo had mentioned, Kraskin said, “it’s letting him be like everyone else.”
Romeo said, regarding his future educational goals, he doesn’t yet have a specific college in mind, but he’s looking at schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“That’s my goal because I know I’m capable of performing at that level,” he said.
As a Cochlear Foundation National Inspirer, Romeo has a message for other people who are deaf.
“I want them to know that it shouldn’t restrict them,” he said. “They shouldn’t let physical disability hold them back.”
If you put in the effort, Romeo said, “you can do whatever you want to do.”
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.