Clinical trial helps 8-year-old San Diego girl and other children hear for first time

Adrian Rhodes' tiny fingers bounced off the keys of the piano with the joy of a person who loves hearing music, even though she's only been playing for a few months.

Remarkably, the 8-year-old’s only been able to hear for a little longer that that.

“She amazes me every day," Adrian's mother, Dea Rhodes, said. "She practices twice a day."

Dea said Adrian lost her hearing when she was 4.

“It kind of made me frustrated," said Adrian while sitting at a piano at the Airshine Music School in Clairemont. "I couldn't hear a single thing that people were saying.”

“It was tough because hearing is such an integral part of a child's development,” Dea said.

“Adrian uses Cochlear Osia devices," said Dr. Catherine Moyer, an audiologist with Rady Children’s Hospital audiologist "They're bone conduction implants."

Moyer first met Adrian four years ago.

“She couldn't talk," Moyer said. "She didn't have speech.”

Moyer said Adrian was originally fitted with a less-effective Cochlear Baha system, which is attached to an elastic headband, as are all patients younger than 12. Until now, she wasn’t eligible to use the more-effective Osia system, which places a magnet under the skin near the back of the head to attach the device.

Rady Children’s doctors helped Adrian get into a clinical trial using the Osia system on younger children.

“We jumped right on board,” Dea said.

“I was kind of scared because I had had a lot of surgery for them,” Adrian said.

The surgery paid off. So did the trial: Adrian can now hear.

The Osia system is now available to children as young as 5, which is seven more years of valuable learning for elementary students.

“That means that these children, school-age children, are going to be able to hear,” Moyer said.

“Every parent wants the best for their kids," Dea said, "and just seeing your child transform to what you know they could be is overwhelming."

Adrian, who is a second-grader at Sweetwater Springs Elementary, has her first piano recital in a few weeks.