ROUND ROCK, Texas -- Drew Guardado, a fifth grade student at Round Rock Christian Academy, has always had to sit at the front of class. The 10-year-old is hearing impaired.
Drew has had to read his teachers’ lips. A normal voice to him sounds more like a faint whisper.
“I’d be like, ‘Is this what she said? Is this what I’m supposed to do?’” Drew told KVUE News. “I’d have to make a decision, and if it wasn’t right, I’d get a bad grade.”
On Monday, that changed.
A local doctor donated a new, state-of-the-art hearing device to Drew’s school. Before he relied on hearing aids, but now he can hear his teachers through a wireless microphone connected to devices in his ears.
“I think this will help him emotionally -- his self-esteem, everything,” said donor Lori Cook of Cook Hearing & Balance.
The device is worth about $5,000. Drew called the gift a miracle.
“I can hear now. I’m probably not going to have any trouble,” he said. “It sounds as if you were talking to somebody through a phone.”
It is a sound that can soon make all the difference in his performance at school and in life.
