By Ben Nuckols, The Associated Press, May 25, 2016
WASHINGTON – Making it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee is an amazing achievement for any kid, but for 11-year-old Neil Maes, being born deaf made his journey especially unlikely.
After receiving cochlear implants in both ears as a baby, he had to train his brain to understand spoken words. It took countless hours of speech therapy.
“We didn’t even know that he’d be able to talk. It wasn’t a guarantee,” his mother, Christy Maes, said Tuesday.
