The children, some just toddlers, wore Christmas-themed costumes, sang and performed short skits. Some forgot their lines. Others were loud. Some waved and yelled out to their parents. A few cried.

And the children weren't the only ones with tears in their eyes. Some parents were overcome with emotion as they watched their deaf children recite lines and sing songs.

"When I think about how much they've helped us, I can't describe it. They gave us hope," Paul Russo of Morrow said of Ohio Valley Voices.

His son Jack, 5, is just one of nearly three dozen Ohio Valley Voices students who are partially or profoundly deaf but have learned to speak through classes at the 5-year-old school.

The nonprofit school serves 31 students from birth through second grade, and now has a waiting list. Twenty-three students have graduated from Ohio Valley Voices.

The students interpret or hear sounds through hearing aids or surgically inserted cochlear implants. The school emphasizes oral communication so children can function in the "hearing world," said development coordinator Jacqueline Jones.

"They can go to their schools and have a normal life," she said. It's the only school of its type in the Tristate; the nearest is in St. Louis, Jones said.

The Christmas program allows the school to demonstrate the children's skills.

Michelle Crawley, mother of 4-year-old Emily, spoke during the program. Crawley said she put her daughter in the school after watching the 2001 holiday show.

"When we first found out (Emily was deaf) we didn't know what was going to be possible," she said. "When you see the kids talk for the first time, it brings you to tears."

Emily will graduate this year and become a student at Lakota Early Childhood Center. She's the youngest child to ever graduate from Ohio Valley Voices.

Angie Vaughan, of Anderson Township, said her son Colin, 4, has made great strides at Ohio Valley Voices.

"They gave Colin language, which lets us function as an oral family. He and his sister can play pretend, they can fight, the can tattle on each other. The other day he said, 'I'm teaching (his 19- month-old brother Austin) to speak,' which is fundamentally absurd when you think about it," she said.

This year's performance was the last at the church, where the school has been renting classroom space for five years.

Ohio Valley Voices is near the end of a fund-raising campaign for a $1.5 million renovation of the former River Hills Christian Church in Loveland.

The new school will house 75 students, and officials hope to move into the new building in July.

By Feoshia Henderson
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051221/NEWS0102/512210339