First pediatric auditory brain stem implant lets child "hear"

Wow, this is quite an incredible story on CNN. 3-year-old Grayson Clamp is the nation's first child to receive an auditory brain stem implant. This boy was born without a cochlear nerve, so a cochlear implant didn't help him. He couldn't hear anything until he recently had surgery for an auditory brain stem implant.

Grayson now wears an external speech processor containing a microphone and he also has an external battery that powers the auditory brain stem implant. Doctor's aren't sure "what" he hears, but we know that he is capable of hearing sound.

Back in January, the FDA approved clinical trials for auditory brain stem implants.