Batman Delivers the Gift of Hearing to a 6 Year Old Cancer Patient

Dr. Ronna Fisher | Blog

Click here to see the original article on the Daily Herald website from 9/2/15: Batman delivers hearing aids for 6-year-old

A superhero shared his super hearing with a 6-year-old in need of hearing aids at a Naperville hearing health center.

Riley Buckholz, 6, of Burlington, got new hearing aids recently from Batman, his favorite among all superheroes.

Riley’s partial hearing loss was caused by pineal blastoma, a childhood brain tumor about the size of a sunflower seed, said his mother, Adena Buckholz.

The tumors and the radiation and chemotherapy used to treat them are caused Riley to lose the ability to hear several sounds, said Kara Houston, his doctor at Hearing Health Center in Naperville.

“The hearing loss that Riley has is in the high frequency ranges, like the sounds of F, H, TH and CH. Those high-frequency sounds give us clarity of speech,” said Houston, who programmed and installed Riley’s new hearing aids. “If he’s not hearing those sounds, everything is going to sound muddled and not very clear.”

Riley is receiving free treatment at the Hearing Health Center through support of the Fisher Foundation for Hearing Health Care. Phonak, LLC, donated his special hearing aids, which were decorated with the Batman logo to continue the super hearing theme.

The aids will help Riley hear teachers and peers more clearly so he can perform better in first grade.

“He needs to be able to hear those sounds in order to distinguish between words like show, how and feel, with all those consonant sounds which are very similar,” Houston said.

Ronna Fisher

Dr. Ronna Fisher, AuD, CCC-A, FAAA is the founder and president of Hearing Health Center, which she established in 1984 in memory of her father, who suffered from untreated hearing loss and died at 53. That personal loss has shaped her entire career. Under her leadership, Hearing Health Center has been voted the best hearing practice in Illinois three years in a row by Hearing Review. In 2005, she expanded her mission by founding the Fisher Foundation for Hearing Health Care, a nonprofit dedicated to making auditory care more accessible. Dr. Fisher earned her doctorate in audiology from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry and holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology (CCC-A) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Audiology and a member of the Academy of Dispensing Audiologists. Today, Dr. Fisher is focused on the growing body of research linking untreated hearing loss to dementia and cognitive decline, and committed to making sure both patients and the medical community understand what is at stake. As she puts it: You can't remember what you didn't hear.

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About the Author: Dr. Ronna Fisher, AuD, CCC-A, FAAA is the founder and president of Hearing Health Center, which she established in 1984 in memory of her father, who suffered from untreated hearing loss and died at 53. That personal loss has shaped her entire career. Under her leadership, Hearing Health Center has been voted the best hearing practice in Illinois three years in a row by Hearing Review. In 2005, she expanded her mission by founding the Fisher Foundation for Hearing Health Care, a nonprofit dedicated to making auditory care more accessible. Dr. Fisher earned her doctorate in audiology from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry and holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology (CCC-A) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Audiology and a member of the Academy of Dispensing Audiologists. Today, Dr. Fisher is focused on the growing body of research linking untreated hearing loss to dementia and cognitive decline, and committed to making sure both patients and the medical community understand what is at stake. As she puts it: You can't remember what you didn't hear.

Batman Delivers the Gift of Hearing to a 6 Year Old Cancer Patient