Ian’s World May Be Silent, but It’s Not Quiet

November, 1983. Ian Patterson of Stanton, then only 3, sat at a table in Los Angeles and played with toy farm animals while clinic technicians milled around him.

Then he looked up, surprised and grinning. There was no mistaking that Ian had heard, not seen, a technician say, “Ba ba ba ba ba,” into an electronic device. Ian had experienced sound for the first time.

Born deaf, Ian had been in an utterly silent world, communicating with hand signs, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, sometimes making only high-pitched babbling sounds. But he was bright--IQ tests had confirmed it--and his mother was looking for anything that would help him break free of the bonds that often hold back the deaf.

A controversial device called a cochlear implant, considered experimental in children, was inserted behind Ian’s left ear and connected to the auditory nerve that normally carries sound impulses from the ear to the brain. When stimulated by an electronic device like a hearing aid outside his body, the implant sends electrical impulses to the nerve and gives the sensation of sound.

Those who once could hear and later used the device report the “sound” is like a staticky radio that has been too poorly tuned to be distinct. Specific word and sounds cannot be identified.

But doctors and technicians at the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles, where Ian received his implant, hope that even such indistinct sound can help the deaf become more sophisticated lip readers and abandon hand signs, thus becoming a part of mainstream society.

“We just want him to find a niche and then go for it,” said his mother, Amber Patterson, a hospital pharmacy technician.

May, 1988. Ian, nearly 8, is in the outfield warming up with his Little League teammates. Unlike the other parents, who are in the bleachers, Ian’s mother is on the outfield sidelines in case the coach needs to say something to Ian. The message still must be delivered by hand sign.

Much has happened in Ian’s world during the last 4 1/2 years. His mother is now Amber Toliver, having divorced his father. He and his brother Bo have moved with her to Anaheim. They have two new sisters, 3 and 1. He’s bowling in a children’s league and has played soccer for two seasons. This is his second season of Little League. He wants to try football next. (“Maybe later,” his mother said.)

In all cases, he plays with teammates who hear normally. No problem, said his mother. “He doesn’t feel different. Kids are much more open than adults. Some of them say they don’t want to play with him because he can’t understand them, but once they get past that, everything’s fine.”

If anything, Ian’s teammates tend to mother him, said his Little League coach, Jerry Anderson of Anaheim. Ian plays like any normal boy his age, but when he got his first hit, a double, the entire team jumped to their feet and flashed him the thumbs-up sign from the dugout, Anderson said.

“They react to him very well,” Anderson said. “There’re other boys on the team that they treat with less respect. He does real good. The only drawback that makes him a little harder to teach is . . . we have to turn to his mother, and she tells him what we’re telling him.”

Umpires must be told that Ian is deaf so they’ll be sure to signal their calls to him.

But when sound is vital, well, there’s just not much to be done. Because the coaches can’t shout directions to him in left field, Ian is to always to throw the ball to second base. In soccer, Ian once began a charge at the wrong goal, and no amount of shouting was about to stop him. (He realized his mistake in time.)

The device lets Ian know there is sound happening outside his useless ears. When his teammates in the field start chanting, “Batter-batter-batter,” he can hear them doing it, though he can’t understand what they’re saying. He joins in with a loud mumble.

He is able to read lips somewhat, his mother said, but she is uncertain how much the device is helping. In familiar situations, he can recognize spoken sentences. “If he meets someone, he can recognize, ‘How are you?’ because it’s in context. But if you throw him a shot in the dark, forget it,” his mother said.

The technicians at the clinic tell her to be patient, she said. “They want great things from Ian. They would like him to be more oral than he is, but he’s not. They want us to take the signing away from him, but I won’t take something away from him just so he can be frustrated.

“It’s just the way you look at it,” she said. “They’re not wrong, but I’m not wrong either.”