Three year old hears music for the first time



This past weekend, Auguste Majkowski, 3, heard music for the first time. The Montreal preschooler

was born without auditory nerves. Sounds couldn't travel to his brain.
When cochlear implants failed to help, his mother, Sophie Gareau, started looking at other options.
When she saw the viral video of little Grayson Champ hearing for the first time – the result of an experimental auditory brainstem implant (ABI) surgery – she approached Grayson's surgical team and asked if her son was also a candidate. He was.


After months of meetings and appointments in California, Auguste underwent surgery at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles on May 6. During the six-hour surgery, an electronic device was installed directly on Auguste's brain stem so that sound bypasses the inner ear. Now, just weeks after the successful surgery, Auguste is learning to hear for the first time.

"Sometimes we call his name and he looks up. This is something we've never seen him do before. This is amazing," Auguste's mother, Sophie Gareau, told CBC News. Over the weekend, Auguste heard his first song: "Ma Baker" by Boney M.

Almost immediately, the excited preschooler got up and started to dance.

Gareau told Global News that she hoped the first song Auguste would hear would be "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," but she has no complaints.

“Who would’ve thought it would be Ma Baker by Boney M! I won’t complain, this is simply amazing!!!” she wrote on Facebook.
According to CBC News, Auguste is the first of 10 children who will receive this implant, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
"This is a first step in offering a technology to children that have been unable to benefit from prosthetic devices," said Dr. Laurie Eisenberg, professor of otolaryngology, University of Southern
California.