Her Disability Never Stopped Her From Achieving Her Goals, The Life of Ashley Bell

When Ashley Bell was just 3 years old, her family discovered that she had severe and permanent hearing loss. This is her story of how she has not only dealt with her disability, but has gone above and beyond to achieve her goals without letting her disability stop her.

Ashley Bell was born on July 16, 2002 to her parents John and Kelly Bell. She was born in Greenville, PA and lived her whole childhood here. She has one brother Jake Bell, and one sister Allana Jaussen.

At just age 3, Ashley’s parents found out that she had severe hearing loss. Kelly Bell, her mother, was interviewed over the phone and told her story of how she found out that her daughter had hearing loss.

Kelly stated:

“As a parent finding out your child has hearing loss includes a roller coaster of emotions. At first we were shocked, somewhat in denial and disbelief. Ashley did not present with any loss at birth. She never really showed any clear signs that there was an issue. Her preschool teacher was concerned about her speech, which in turn led to numerous types of testing to rule out what was actually going on.”

After multiple tests, it was found that Ashley had a moderate to severe hearing loss and would need hearing aids. They have no reason for why it happened, it is just a coincidence. Allana, her older sister was also found to have mild hearing loss in her left ear as well. Ashley’s brother Jake has no hearing loss at all.

Her parents were very thankful that the audiologists caught the hearing loss as early as they did. They believe without the help of audiologists and caring teachers, they may not have realized the loss until much later on because Ashley had adapted to read lips on her own. Her parents feel like it was a very enlightening experience. They got to learn about the technology available for children, and educate themselves on how they could best serve their daughter.

When Ashley began school, she again learned to adapt to the challenges set before her. She received great assistance from her peers and the teachers at her elementary school. They had resources available like a microphone that the teacher could wear while teaching, that connected to Ashley’s hearing aides. The school audiologists also provided the other students in Ashley’s class with a microphone that they could pass around during class discussions to help Ashley be able to actively participate in the discussions in class. While she could hear well with just her hearing aides, she sometimes struggled to hear group conversations so the microphones connected to her hearing aids helped greatly.

"Over the years I just adapted." Ashley stated.

She attended highschool at Commodore Perry Highschool where she graduated at 17. Despite her hearing loss Ashley was very involved in highschool sports. She played volleyball and basketball, as well as ran long distance in track and cross country.

After highschool she went on to attend where she now goes to college, Lockhaven University. At Lockhaven, Ashley studies Exercise Science and has a minor in Business Administration. Ashley is active within her church and loves to talk about her faith with anyone she can! She is also a lover of weight lifting and cross-fit, so she hopes to become a personal trainer one day and open her own gym. She is extremely driven when it comes to achieving her goals.

"Personally I have never let hearing affect my goals or the things that I do because it is not something that I let get in my way. This is kind of funny, but, I'm a normal person, just low volume!" Ashley joked.

Ashley also gave advice for anyone who also struggles with a disability.

"Find a mentor, a teacher, or even a parent. Just someone who can help you deal with any struggles that you may face. Have someone who can help guide you." - Ashley Bell

When it comes to how society can help the hearing impaired community, Ashley had some thoughts.

1. Understand that people with hearing loss depend on reading your lips, repeat your sentence if they ask.

2. Ashley feels, that as a society we need to help find ways for hearing assistance to be easily accessible.

"When you hit age 18, most insurance no longer covers hearing assistance" she stated "Thats really hard because its something that people are either born with, or it happens miraculously to, and that's not fair to people who need help, to not be able to get that."

We can all learn something from Ashley's story, and that is that no matter what obstacle you face, you can achieve the things you set out to accomplish with a little bit of hard work and determination!

Ashley shows in the photo to the right how hearing aids have adapted. They are no longer even visible!

A TIME LINE OF EVENTS