Legally deaf Marble Falls graduate defying the odds

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

MARBLE FALLS — If you ask Emily Klingsporn about her life and the challenges she has faced, she shrugs and asks, “What do you mean?”

The 2014 Marble Falls High School graduate understands the question, but she just doesn’t see how it applies to her.

But if you ask the same question to her parents, Garnette and Dale Klingsporn, they clearly have a different perspective.

“I don’t think I could have gone through what she’s gone through,” said her father, Dale. “She’s just so strong-willed. She just won’t let anybody see her or treat her any different.”

As she prepares to enter Texas A&M University and join the Corps of Cadets later this month, Emily’s journey so far hasn’t been the typical one. She’s legally deaf with a hearing aid in her right ear and a cochlear implant in the other. But Emily goes about life as any other person her age.

Still, her life is anything but typical. In 1995, Emily was born 12 weeks early and weighed 2 pounds and 8 ounces. She was a twin, born with her brother Timothy, who weighed 2 pounds and 2 ounces. Physicians gave her a 75 percent chance of surviving.

She spent the first three months of her life in the hospital but made it home. Her brother, Timothy, sadly didn’t.

Emily contracted cytomegalovirus (CMV) early in her life. One of the complications the disease can trigger in infants is hearing loss.

By the time the family moved to Marble Falls, before Emily started school, her parents suspected there was something wrong with her hearing. Tests would eventually confirm it.

But Emily learned how to do something early on that at first confounded her parents.

“We figured out she was reading lips,” Dale said with a smile.

A person looking directly at her and speaking might not even have realized Emily couldn’t hear him or her.

Although, if a man with a beard or a mustache spoke to her, the facial hair concealed his lips, making them difficult to read.

The Klingsporns found a way to know when she was reading their lips. When they spoke to her, they would move their mouths but not make a sound.

“But she’d answer us,” Dale said.

A student with hearing issues can easily fall behind in class. Fortunately for Emily and her parents, Marble Falls Independent School District’s Special Services program created an atmosphere that not only supported her but welcomed her unconditionally. Kids sometimes single out those who aren’t like them, and with hearing problems and a hearing aid, Emily might have appeared like an easy target.

“No, it never really happened,” Emily said about other kids teasing her.

Her parents agreed.

“Everybody knew that was Emily, so nobody really made an issue about her hearing,” Garnette recalled.

But that came with a caveat. Teachers, fellow students — and even her parents — didn’t allow her to use her hearing problem as a crutch. Not that Emily would. Dale and Garnette Klingsporn set high expectations for her just as they had for her older brother, Walker.

“I think that was important,” Dale said. “We had high expectations.”

“And she knew it,” Garnette said. “And she also set high expectations for herself. She never let her hearing keep her from doing something or using it as an excuse.”

Those expectations would foster Emily’s view of herself as just like everyone else.

And she is.

While a hearing aid returned some of her lost hearing, the Klingsporns found themselves weighing an option in 2004 that could give Emily a much greater sense of hearing in her left ear. Physicians recommended Emily for a cochlear implant.

Unlike a hearing aid, which basically amplifies sound, a cochlear implant bypasses the damaged part of the ear and directly stimulates the auditory nerve. It requires surgery to fix the implant within the ear. Once the internal portion is in place, the recipient uses a transmitter placed on a magnet (implanted above the ear) to hear.

While it seemed like an easy decision, Garnette and Dale wrestled with it.

“Once you have this surgery, there’s no going back. They have to remove a lot of the natural parts of the ear,” Dale said. “We didn’t know what would happen with the other ear. And we didn’t know what would happen in the future if they found something better than (the cochlear). Once the surgery was done, it was done.”

But for all the “what ifs,” the Klingsporns decided the best thing for Emily was to let her hear. So surgeons implanted the cochlear in the 8-year-old’s ear canal and placed the receiver/stimulator above her left ear.

The implant doesn’t give Emily normal hearing. She described it as a mechanical sound, but she can hear people talk, among other things. Since the first implant, she has undergone several cochlear upgrades as the technology improves.

For Emily, it’s just a part of her life.

She did everything her classmates did, including playing sports. She was a member of the girls’ varsity basketball team in high school. During the games, however, Emily wouldn’t wear the removable transmitter.

“I didn’t want it to get knocked off,” she said.

That came as a relief to her parents, as they pointed out the device cost several thousand dollars. Still, it made for some interesting games. In order for her to hear her teammates, they would have to yell at her. It was something her parents understood but sometimes raised the eyebrows of other people.

“Sometimes somebody would say, ‘Why are they yelling at Emily so much,'” Garnette said. “She’s deaf,’ I’d tell them.”

She thrived athletically and academically, being inducted into the National Honor Society as a sophomore. She also has worked at Thomas Bait Shop in Marble Falls since turning 16.

Neither the cochlear implant nor her limited hearing set boundaries for her. If anybody set a bar for Emily, she just cleared it.

With high school behind her, Emily is preparing for college. She’s heading to Texas A&M University, where she plans to study poultry science. And she’s joining the Corps of Cadets.

Emily shrugged off any thought she’s different. She’s just Emily. The key to success, she said, is determining how far you want to go and then go.

Garnette recalled when Emily attended the Legacy Honors Banquet, which recognizes the top 10 percent of Marble Falls graduates. During the ceremony, each student gets introduced and an administrator reads a quote selected by the youth that best represents him or her.

“Emily’s quote was ‘exceeding expectations,'” Garnette said. “And she has, since the day she was born. And she’ll just keep on doing it.”

daniel@thepicayune.com