For Jordan's mother, Angela Brown, the day was filled with anticipation and anxiety. More than a year after she realized her baby boy was deaf, he would hear for the first time.

A month ago, Jordan was the Capital Region's youngest patient ever to be fitted with cochlear implants in both ears at the same time. After allowing time for the surgical incisions to heal, the system was activated Tuesday morning.

"My mom noticed it about a year ago. He wasn't speaking or responding," said Brown, 19, who traveled with her family from Millerton, Dutchess County, so the toddler could receive the medical technology. "He started out with hearing aids, but they weren't working."

Implants use tiny microphones to pick up and translate sound into electric signals that are sent to the auditory nerves.

More than 23,000 people in the United States have the implants, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Most people receive only one, but doctors recently determined that hearing is improved by wiring both ears.

"You get better directionality of sound," said Dr. David Foyt, who has surgically implanted the devices in about 100 deaf patients, including Jordan, at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany.

After the audiologist attached two transmitters to the back of the boy's head, she watched a monitor that registered Jordan's brain waves as they responded to tones generated by a computer. Jordan stopped smiling, looked scared and reached for his grandmother.

"Children give anything from a surprised look to crying and screaming to pulling off the transmitter," Rende said.

But when microphones in each ear were turned on to pick up ambient sound, his reaction was more subtle. Occasionally, he brightened when a loud noise was made, but he still did not react to most sounds in the room. Then he started vocalizing, albeit with simple babble.

It is harder to tell how the implants work in young children like Jordan because they are not capable of knowing that they had been missing one of their senses. So when Jordan suddenly began to hear, he had no reference for what was happening to him, no way to judge where the sound was coming from, or what sound even was.

"It's like being a newborn baby. His ears are newborn today," Rende said. "As he starts associating meaning with sound, like the sound of a dog barking, he'll want to keep hearing."

With the help of speech therapy, she said, Jordan should be talking on par with children his age by the time he is 4, and he should be able to take classes without extra assistance in school.

By Danielle Furfaro
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=427164