Special Report
01 'rHE COVER
'We Were Relentless'
Shelli Liebman Dorfman
Senior Writer
A
ll Jordan Levin's parents ever
wanted for their profoundly
deaf son was for him to experi-
ence life like anybody else. They knew
they were headed in the right direction
when they discovered that, at age 8,
Jordan didn't even know he was hearing
impaired.
"No one had ever told me I was differ-
ent," Jordan said. "One day I watching a
show on TV and the words 'closed cap-
tioning for the hearing-impaired' came
across the bottom of the screen. I went to
my parents and asked them, `If I'm watch-
ing this show, does that mean I'm hearing
impaired?'
From the start, Mollene and Dr. Martin
J. Levin of West Bloomfield were deter-
mined not to allow their son to be treated
any differently from a hearing child — at
home, in school or in other activities.
At 32, Jordan, who lives in Keego
Harbor, holds a bachelor's degree in busi-
ness administration from Michigan State
University; is a certified personal fitness
trainer at Fitness 19 in West Bloomfield,
an avid hockey player and an inspiration-
al speaker. "I talk about pursuing dreams:'
he said knowingly.
All of this is chronicled in the book
We Were Relentless: A Family's Journey
to Overcome Disability (2009, Xlibris,
$19.95), written by Martin Levin. A recep-
tion to launch the book will take place
on Sunday, Feb. 15, at the Janice Charach
Gallery inside the Jewish Community
Center in West Bloomfield.
Jordan weighed a mere 31 ounces when
he was born three months premature. His
hands were the size of a man's fingernail,
his limbs about the width of a pencil and
his chest circumference not much larger
than a banana. He spent his first four
months in the hospital, almost half that
time on a respirator. In the early days,
he was given only a 10 percent chance of
surviving. But, in spite of his premature
birth, surgeries, infections and complica-
tions, he grew to 4.6 pounds and went
home.
"He had been born four months earlier,
but we were told developmentally it was
as if he was just born:' Mollene said. "He
was zero."
Sta ff p hoto by Ang ie Baan
A family's journey to overcome disability.
Jordan Levin and his parents, Mollene and Martin
A Devastating Diagnosis
"Jordan could have been blind or had
brain damage or serious lung problems:'
Mollene said. "But he didn't, and he just
moved along developmentally — but
slowly." Jordan was always active, "a wild
man who never, ever, ever sat still," said
his mom. As a preschooler, he escaped his
parents' watchful eye, once starting a gas-
powered lawn mower and another time
the family car. Before he could walk, he
was able to climb out of his crib.
When he was about 21/2, Jordan was
diagnosed as being profoundly deaf, which
the Levins believe was caused by a combi-
nation of his prematurity and medication.
He was fitted with hearing aids, which
give him about 30 percent hearing. Before
he had the aids, he could hear low fre-
quency sounds, but not speech. His origi-
nal, cumbersome body aid — a pouch
on his chest connected to each ear with
speaker cord — has since been replaced
with clear, barely noticeable aids that go
inside and behind the ears.
"We were told Jordan would never
speak; that he needed to learn sign lan-
guage and that he would only be able to
communicate with other people who knew
it',' Mollene said.
While researching possible alterna-
tive options, Mollene met families whose
children spoke clearly and didn't use sign
language. The Levins attended the Voice
Conference in Toronto, sponsored by a group
advocating teaching deaf children to speak.
"There we met Dr. Ciwa Griffiths from the
Hear Center in Pasadena, who pounded her
fists on a table and told us,`Don't let anyone
tell you your profoundly deaf child can't do
something," Mollene said.
"We were told to treat Jordan like any
other child who can do anything."
At the conference, they learned about
the auditory training method developed
by Dr. Griffiths to help hearing-impaired
children gain speech through amplifica-
tion and learning to listen. "Just because
a child had a hearing aid on didn't mean
he could hear a sound," his father, Marty,
said. "Jordan needed to learn to use his
hearing."
The Levins went to Dr. Griffiths' cen-
ter, returning home in search of a tutor
trained to teach auditory training. They
found Karen Pawlick of Bloomfield Hills,
who at first declined to work with Jordan
because she had young children at home.
Perseverant and resourceful, Mollene
suggested she watch the children while
Karen met with Jordan for an hour, three
days a week. The arrangement continued
for nearly half the 12 years Karen tutored
Jordan.
At home, Mollene and Marty continued
the lessons with Karen's guidance.
"We found there is so much more to
teaching speech than we ever imagined:'
Mollene said. Hearing children learn to
speak by listening and repeating. "We
couldn't teach Jordan to hear, but we could
teach him to listen:' Mollene said. By con-
centrating only on what he needed to hear,
Jordan was able to make out sounds and
later words and sentences that were direct-
ed at him, and to speak them himself.
Now he is able to hear what is said
to him even when speakers cover their
mouths — to avoid lip reading —
because he is listening.
The process was tedious, with Mollene
leaving her teaching job to be with Jordan
and Marty working a reduced schedule in
his Northville optometry office.
"First we had to figure out how sounds
were made and then how to teach them;'
Marty said. "For the "L" sound, we had
Jordan reach for peanut butter on his pal-
ette with his tongue and he learned the "P"
sound by blowing out a candle."
Understanding Jordan
The Levins were determined not only to
teach Jordan to pronounce each sound,
but for him to speak like a hearing per-
'We Were Relentless' on page A16
February 12 2009
A15