Couple’s joy as deaf daughter hears thanks to new gene therapy
The parents of an 18-month-old girl who can hear thanks to a groundbreaking gene therapy for deafness have said they are delighted with her progress.
Jo Sandy, a 33-year-old secondary school geography teacher, and her husband James, 33, who works in car manufacturing, said they were “gobsmacked” when they realised Opal could hear without the need for a cochlear implant.
Opal now loves slamming her cutlery on the table to make a noise and enjoys playing with toy drums, a piano and wooden blocks.
The family, from , have an older daughter Nora, aged five, who has the same genetic form of auditory neuropathy as Opal and wears cochlear
