By AMY ADAMS
For The Reporter
Madyson Jones passed her newborn hearing screening. However, by the time she was four years old, Maddy was having tubes put in her ears for the fourth time.
Her parents’ frustration with a lack of answers eventually led to an appointment with pediatric ENT Dr. Benjamin Copeland. Dr. Copeland’s insistence on a CT scan before even seeing Maddy led to the discovery that she had been born with enlarged vestibular aqueduct as well as malformed cochlea.
“She was always a quiet baby,” said Madyson’s mother, Katie Jones. “She was never fussy. She was our first child, so we didn’t really know any different. But now looking back, we wonder if there was some evidence of hearing loss and we just didn’t know it.”
Madyson received her first hearing aid when she was in third grade. Nevertheless, she said she grew up reading lips without even realizing it. People would notice and comment that instead of making eye contact with others she would watch their lips.
Now, as a senior at Westfield High School (WHS), Madyson has lost 50 percent of the hearing in her right ear and 70 percent of the hearing in her left.
At St. Maria Goretti Catholic School, where she attended kindergarten through eighth grade, Madyson began volunteering as a puppeteer with the Joseph Maley Foundation Puppets. The puppet program, which falls under the Joseph Maley Foundation’s education pillar, teaches middle school students to voice puppets who have disabilities so that they can present skits about awareness and inclusivity.
One of the leaders of her puppet troupe asked Madyson if she had considered speaking to groups of students about her hearing loss. At the suggestion of that leader, Maddy began by speaking to her own eighth-grade class. She enjoyed it so much that she went on to speak to a fifth-grade class and then a kindergarten class.
“I’ve been open and honest about my hearing loss for as long as I can remember,” Madyson said. “I will talk about it to anyone who is willing to listen.”
Although entering Westfield High School after eighth grade was not what her parents had expected, Katie said that Madyson was adamant that she was ready for the change. Maddy threw herself into the theater program and Verbatim, an online space for poetry and short stories written by WHS students.
“She has found her niche,” Katie said. “Overall, we have been happy with Westfield High School.”
Katie gives credit to Laura Bolender, teacher for the deaf at Westfield Washington Schools, for helping Maddy learn how to advocate for herself.
“My friends all know how to accommodate me,” Madyson said. “They know to talk louder and to look at me when speaking.”
Madyson is also not shy about letting her teachers know what she will need on the first day of class and then reminding them throughout the trimester as needed. Those accommodations include her teachers wearing microphones that connect directly to her hearing aids and having closed captioning available.
While Madyson has spoken to more than 20 groups of young people in the past five years, she had never spoken to her fellow students at Westfield High School.
“There is a big difference between a class of 42 and a class of more than 600,” she said. “It took me a while to get comfortable.”
Recently, Madyson decided that it was time to share her voice with WHS.
“I am often out in the halls during passing periods,” WHS Assistant Principal Kurt Frederick said. “One day, Maddy just came over like a flash, and she had such a zeal.”
Madyson told him that she really wanted to do a presentation for high schoolers before she graduated.
Frederick helped her set up a day to speak during CORE, a 30-minute flex period between fourth and fifth periods for Connection, Opportunities, Remediation and Enrichment. They advertised the opportunity through school media and opened it for any students to sign up.
Madyson gave a roughly 15-minute talk to about 20 students and a few staff members. According to Frederick, some students came because they were interested in fields of working with people with disabilities. Others had disabilities themselves and wanted to offer their support to Maddy.
“She was just dynamite,” Frederick said. “She talked about how she wouldn’t trade her deafness for the world. She said it makes her who she is, and it makes her feel whole.”
Along with March being Disability Awareness Month, Madyson also wove the WHS monthly theme of respect into her speech.
“Accommodating people is respecting people, whether it’s someone with hearing loss or an exchange student,” Madyson said. “The big thing I hit on is how to love everybody.”
Accepted into the Honors College at Ball State University, Madyson will not let her hearing loss hold her back. She plans to study premedicine and then hopes to attend medical school and go into orthopedic surgery.
“We have always told her that she can do anything she wants to do,” Katie said, “to do what’s in her heart. We told her to do what makes her happy but not to settle for anything. You can manifest and make your dreams come true, you just have to do it.”