Parents tend to worry if cochlear implant can help their deaf or hard-of-hearing children live normally like any other hearing individuals. Will they be able to speak normally? Will they be accepted? Will they be able to be employed? Cochlear implant user Lionel Heng‘s story provides hope to the parents amidst their anxiety.
Lionel Has Lots of Credentials on His Resume
Lionel is a 36-year-old unilateral CI recipient living in Singapore. He is a Lab Director at Singapore’s largest defence research and development (R&D) organisation. An alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University and ETH Zürich, he is today happily married with three kids. In an interview over a video call, He revealed his share of struggles as a CI recipient.
He Grew Up With Hearing Loss and Was Implanted at Age 15
Lionel was born profoundly deaf in both ears. He used hearing aids until he was 15 when he got implanted in his left ear. He attended mainstream schools from Primary 5 onward. He served the national service for two and a half years before pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Economics at Carnegie Mellon University in the US. He then completed a master’s degree program at Stanford University and later obtained a PhD at ETH Zurich, which is also Albert Einstein’s alma mater. All his advanced levels of education were fully funded by scholarships.
He Struggles in Group Settings
The perfect facade is not without struggle. Lionel shared his struggles in following group conversations and hearing well in noisy environments (albeit the limitations are diminishing with newer CI models). He also wrestled with a lack of self-confidence, especially in public speaking, when he was in university. It was his PhD study that pushed his comfort zone to include public speaking. He needed to develop public speaking skills to cope with oral presentations that came with paper publications as a PhD candidate.
When asked how he overcomes low self-esteem that plagues many CI recipients, Lionel said:
“Life has so much to offer and I have realized that I can’t just let my hearing pull me down but find ways to work around it.”
It is easier said than done. Lionel was rejected by his first crush when he was in junior college. But his mother told him: “Your wife will be a good person because she’ll marry you for what you are.” And here he is, saying, “I may have otherwise not met my wife whom I share a happy family with today.” Lionel has a younger brother, Joseph Heng, who is also a CI recipient.
Lionel with his wife and their three children
You could find more cochlear implant user here.
CI Project collects cochlear implant user stories. I’d like to invite you to join the private Facebook group. You’ll receive an update of each new story (about once a month) and will get to interact with the characters of each story there. I’m also looking for more cochlear implant user stories. I’d appreciate it if you could nominate a cochlear implant user (including yourself) for me to write a story about!
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