‘Daddy loves you’ were the first words that baby Julian—then five months old—heard when his cochlear implants were switched on.

Julian is the now the fifth member of his family to receive implants to help him access sound, following in the footsteps of his Mum Lucy, Dad Phillip, and brothers Leo and Arthur, who are all deaf.

We first connected with the Perrone family three years ago, when we shared their story about why being bilingual works for them. And recently, 7NEWS Sydney paid a visit to our centre for innovation to meet this wonderful family for themselves.

The moment when Julian had his implants switched on was an extra special one, as he received the 8000^th implant under our cochlear implant program, which has been running for more than 40 years and is Australia’s largest.

For Lucy and Phillip, ensuring their boys have early support for their hearing loss was very important. They knew from personal experience that their cochlear implant journey didn’t end when their device was switched on. They had put in the hard yards learning to listen with their implants, and had been with Arthur and Leo every step of the way.

‘Early intervention is really important in our life,’ says Lucy.

Leo, Arthur and Julian receive ongoing support from NextSense, including speech therapy and audiology, to help them develop their listening, language and communication skills. They also attend a playgroup session at our Rouse Hill centre to connect with other families of children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

‘It’s good to meet other parents who are in a similar boat to you, and having experience [with cochlear implants] myself, I offer to help them and answer their questions,’ says Lucy.

They now have nine cochlear implants between the five of them, with different coloured processors to help them differentiate between them.

The family also embraces bilingualism, using Auslan alongside spoken language and maintaining a strong connection with the Deaf community.

The boys’ key worker, Nidhee, helps coordinate support for the family. As a speech pathologist, she works with Lucy and Phillip to provide support for all of their children. Leo has single-sided deafness and is in Year 1 at primary school, so Nidhee focuses on building his spoken and written language skills and literacy. With Arthur, who has hearing loss in both ears and is in preschool, she is working on extending his vocabulary and grammar as well as developing his speech sound skills. And with Julian, she is working with his parents to develop his listening skills and ensure that he gets consistent access to immersion in spoken language.

ENT surgeon Clinical Professor Catherine Birman, who is one of the world’s most experienced cochlear implant surgeons, conducted Lucy, Leo, Arthur and Julian’s surgeries. She recently celebrated a milestone of her own, having performed 2,000 surgeries over her extensive career.

NextSense audiologist Jane, who activated Julian’s cochlear implants—known as the ‘switch on’ process—witnessed the incredible moment he accessed sound for the first time.