The first ‘hearing aids’ if you could call them that, were hearing trumpets. They were large and cumbersome - like the trumpet on early gramophones. We've come a long way since then :-)

Communication is the very basis of our existence. Without communication we cannot interact with our peers, we cannot learn language and at a very basic level we cannot even think.

Now that I know so much more about hearing and deafness, it’s fascinating to observe my baby grandson in his journey to acquiring language.

Hearing loss impacts on individuals, their families, friends and colleagues. But hearing loss also has an impact on the wider community.

A discussion on the influence of education, schools families and Communities in the evolution of Auslan

Accepting our loss we can minimise the emotional toll on ourselves and put us one more back in control regaining some of the independence we feel we had lost.

Having the surgery for a Cochlear Implant is only the first step in my new hearing process. There are many other things to be done. One of the first is the Telemetry Test to determine which electrodes are working.

It is important to know what is happening with your hearing loss because it helps you better manage it. I asked Rowena how she manages her hearing loss.

It’s now one month since my second cochlear implant was switched on and it’s time to test what sounds I understand.

How good is lip reading? Can people really read lips without any sound and understand what is being said?