Christopher Boyer ’14 has been named one of five recipients for the Graeme Clark Scholarship, an award given to high-achieving students who have benefited from the use of cochlear implants. Boyer could receive up to $8,000 after Cochlear Americas, the scholarship’s sponsor, gave a combined $40,000 in scholarships to five students.

“I was very happy to receive [the scholarship],” Boyer said. “I [feel] a great deal of pride at being judged worthy of being one of those special five.”

“This year’s scholarship winners were selected from an inspirational pool of over 100 applications from across the U.S. and Canada,” Chris Smith, president of Cochlear Americas, said in a press release.

Boyer was born deaf and received cochlear implants at the age of two at Children’s Hospital Boston. While Boyer admits to having had some difficulties, he excelled in high school and was inducted into National Honor Society.

“It may be hard at times, whether socially or academically,” Boyer said. “But a hearing impairment is not going to make it impossible for you, so don’t give up or sell yourself short.”

When asked about what advice he would give to hearing impaired students and their parents, Boyer stressed the importance of not giving up.

“Just because your child is hearing impaired, it does not mean that their future is limited,” Boyer said. “There are many, many resources out there to help them, and if you give them all the support they need and take advantage of all the great people and resources out there, then doors will still be open for them.”

According to audiologist Lori White, more and more cochlear implants are used for those with severe hearing loss. The implant collects sound from the atmosphere, bypassing the mechanisms of the outer and middle ear and delivers the sound directly to the inner ear, White explained. 

While cochlear implants provide the ability to “hear” for many of those who would otherwise never have that opportunity, those with cochlear implants still face certain difficulties.

Boyer said he has the most trouble understanding speech in noisy areas such as cafeterias. Here at Cornell, Boyer said he takes advantage of a variety of accommodations that Student Disability Services offers for hearing impaired students.

Michele Fish, associate director of Student Disability Services, said two of the most commonly used  accommodations for students are FM technology and captioning.

According to Fish, the FM system is a wireless mechanism that helps the hearing impaired better understand speech in noisy situations by transmitting radio waves from a speaker’s microphone to a receiver worn by the hearing impaired listener.

Fish added that Student Disability Services can also hire a captionist to assist hearing impaired students during class. The captionist transcribes a professor’s speech, and the words appear on the student’s connected laptop in realtime.

Despite the accommodations that Cornell is able to provide for students, Fish said hearing impaired students still have the most difficulty in unstructured, “on the fly” situations, such as when a student wishes to speak to a professor after class.

“I see our job as just creating an environment in which students are able to demonstrate their abilities, by simply reducing barriers,” Fish said.