At age 3, it was difficult to understand Ashley when she talked. For this reason, her parents, Julie and John Quintavalle, had her speech tested to see if she would qualify for special education preschool. It was at preschool, at age 4, that the root of the problem was uncovered. To everyone’s surprise, Ashley had a hearing loss.

"She had adapted so well, we had no idea," said Julie. "Even her teacher didn’t know. (The teacher) felt so bad. She said, ‘I should have known.’"

Ashley was diagnosed with mild–moderate hearing loss and hearing aids for both ears were prescribed. What caused her hearing loss remains a mystery.

"I remember leaning on my dad’s shoulder and crying," said Ashley, recalling her initial fitting for the devices, "because I didn’t want that cotton ball stuffed in my ear."

But since receiving them, she has worn them faithfully.

To understand hearing loss, you have to understand how the human ear works. The ear has three parts — outer, inner and middle. The outer ear picks up sound waves and the waves travel through the outer ear canal. When the sound waves hit the eardrum in the middle ear, the eardrum starts to vibrate. When the eardrum vibrates, it moves three tiny bones in the ear, called the hammer, anvil and stirrup. These bones help sound move into the inner ear. The vibrations then travel to the cochlea, which is filled with liquid and lined with cells that have thousands of tiny hairs on their surfaces. The sound vibrations make the tiny hairs move and the hairs convert the sound vibrations into nerve signals so the brain can interpret the sound.

In Ashley’s case, the tiny hairs don’t work.

"The hairs in my cochlea are bent," she explains. "It’s kind of like if you walk over grass again and again and again. After a while, it doesn’t come up anymore."

In her younger days, Ashley wore hearing aids at home, but used an FM set at school, which consisted of a special headset worn by Ashley that was connected to a microphone worn by the teacher. Her classmates never teased her about any of it.

"They thought it was kinda cool, really," she said.

Ashley attended grades K–five at Otsego Elementary and is currently a seventh grader at Rogers Middle School. From preschool through grade six, she worked with Lisa Byrne, a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing with the Elk River School District. In her early school years, Byrne helped Ashley show her classmates what she life was like with a hearing loss.

"She just took over and I’d step aside and say, ‘You go for it, Ashley’" said Byrne. "She’s not afraid, she’s not embarrassed. She’s just, ‘This is who I am.’"

Ashley would display an overhead of the ear and explain how hers differed. The class would listen to a tape of spelling words with the volume adjusted to the level Ashley hears and they all got to try her hearing aid. When Ashley first puts her hearing aids in, it sounds to her like everyone is yelling because her hearing goes from moderate to normal all of a sudden. When they are removed, she can’t hear anything for about five minutes. Without the aids, normal conversation sounds like a whisper. She has learned to reads lips, "And I have a book on sign language, just in case I go deaf, I’ll know some ahead of time."

Ashley sees an audiologist once a year and her hearing hasn’t changed. In the future, she will consider a cochlear implant or a hearing aid that fits right inside the ear. While the over-the-ear models she currently wears work just fine, when the mold is made too small, the hearing aids fall out and they won’t go in if they are made too large (she has her hearing aids changed about once a year).

Ashley is interested in public speaking about her hearing loss to educate people and also to encourage those in the same situation.

"Some people can’t understand how I can be in advanced classes and get high grades if I can’t hear," she said.

But not only does Ashley get high grades, she is an honor roll student. Her favorite classes are gym and family/consumer science.

"And she does real well in math," adds Julie. "She skipped seventh grade math and she’s doing eighth grade math now."

Ashley also participates in the Just for Kix dance team, community education plays, Girl Scouts and soccer.

"I’m going to go to college (post-high school). I want to be a teacher by day and at night a dance instructor. I’ve always loved to dance," something she’s participated in since her preschool days.

And let’s not forget she’s Otsego’s Junior Miss.

Her younger sister, Tessa, had participated in the Little Miss Otsego competition before. "It looked like it would be a lot of fun," said Ashley. She is looking forward to the public appearances she gets to make as Otsego’s Junior Miss, including her first parade Nov. 19 in Cambridge.

"She’s outstanding," said Byrne. "She’s one of those who could be the next Miss America. She’s got so much going for her."

By Susan M.A. Larson