Miss-Delectable
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Artinian, legally deaf, enjoys standout career -- Newsday.com
Heather Artinian has a lot to say. She speaks candidly and with the confidence not usually found in a high school sophomore. She's making up for lost time. For the first nine years of her life, she didn't hear and didn't talk.
Artinian, a 15-year-old at Glen Cove High School, is a star basketball, lacrosse and volleyball player who is legally deaf. The trait runs in her family. Her father, Peter, and mother, Nita, are legally deaf, as are her two brothers Timmy and C.J.
In 2002, she had surgery for a cochlear implant and today, though she says there are still hundreds of words and sounds she hasn't heard, she speaks fluidly and coherently.
Part of Heather's journey toward the hearing world was chronicled in the 2000 Academy Award-nominated documentary, "Sound and Fury." The film, made in 1998-99, focuses on Heather's parents as they struggle to decide whether to allow their 6-year-old daughter to have the implant surgery, a procedure that Heather had been inquiring about since she was 4. Nita and Peter decided against it. They were concerned that Heather was not old enough to make the decision for herself, and they were concerned, too, that once she began to hear that she would drift away from the deaf world of her family.
Heather doesn't remember much about the film, and says she gets embarrassed when she watches it.
Heather was born in Glen Cove, but the Artinians moved in 1998 to Maryland, where she attended a school for the deaf until she was 9 and the family moved back to Long Island. Heather was able to attend Glen Cove schools because of a hearing assistance program. That's when she really wanted to be part of the audible world and she was at an age that her parents felt she could make her own decision.
"Everyone was talking around me," she said. "I wanted to know what they were saying. My parents said I was old enough to make my own choices."
She was the family's trailblazer. Her mother, brothers, an aunt and four cousins have followed her lead and gotten the implant; her father has not. Heather says her mother and brothers wanted the hearing experience but her father said he was happy with what he had.
And she hasn't lost her ties to her deaf upbringing. She succeeds in the hearing world, and at home she lives the deaf culture because her father chose not to get the implant.
Her athletic achievements are filled with similar dualities. She's a pass-first, defensive-minded point guard who led her team in scoring. She's an incredibly quick midfielder who does her best work away from the ball and on defense.
Basketball is her first love, and she started playing when she was 5. She played with boys. They didn't care that she was a girl, or that she was deaf. Only that she could play.
Those basketball skills are a big reason why the Glen Cove girls lacrosse team (8-2) is in the running for Conference V's lone playoff berth. Her sense of sight is highly tuned, so she reads the field like a point guard; her specialty is setting picks and allowing those around her to benefit.
It's not always easy on the lacrosse field. If she's too far away, she might miss what her coach says, and if there's wind, she says she might as well still be deaf. But her teammates ease things for her. They know to relay messages; they've developed signs that can quickly be delivered on the fly to let her know what's going on.
"I'm lucky to have a team that understands," she said. "The team is what makes me what I am."
She's always willing to return the favor. When they needed a goalie, Artinian volunteered and played the entire game without the ability to hear because her device wouldn't fit under the helmet. Glen Cove lost that game, 11-10, in overtime, Artinian made 10 saves but was done in by free-position shots and plays from behind the goal because she couldn't hear the whistle.
It wasn't the first time she played without hearing. The device broke when she was whacked in the head by a stick halfway through a game at West Hempstead.
"She comes running up and says 'Coach Gow, I'm deaf,' " her coach Jacquie Gow said. "I was like 'yeah I know Heather.' And she said 'no, the implant broke, I'm really deaf.' "
It was no big deal. She stayed in and played the whole game.
Heather Artinian has a lot to say. She speaks candidly and with the confidence not usually found in a high school sophomore. She's making up for lost time. For the first nine years of her life, she didn't hear and didn't talk.
Artinian, a 15-year-old at Glen Cove High School, is a star basketball, lacrosse and volleyball player who is legally deaf. The trait runs in her family. Her father, Peter, and mother, Nita, are legally deaf, as are her two brothers Timmy and C.J.
In 2002, she had surgery for a cochlear implant and today, though she says there are still hundreds of words and sounds she hasn't heard, she speaks fluidly and coherently.
Part of Heather's journey toward the hearing world was chronicled in the 2000 Academy Award-nominated documentary, "Sound and Fury." The film, made in 1998-99, focuses on Heather's parents as they struggle to decide whether to allow their 6-year-old daughter to have the implant surgery, a procedure that Heather had been inquiring about since she was 4. Nita and Peter decided against it. They were concerned that Heather was not old enough to make the decision for herself, and they were concerned, too, that once she began to hear that she would drift away from the deaf world of her family.
Heather doesn't remember much about the film, and says she gets embarrassed when she watches it.
Heather was born in Glen Cove, but the Artinians moved in 1998 to Maryland, where she attended a school for the deaf until she was 9 and the family moved back to Long Island. Heather was able to attend Glen Cove schools because of a hearing assistance program. That's when she really wanted to be part of the audible world and she was at an age that her parents felt she could make her own decision.
"Everyone was talking around me," she said. "I wanted to know what they were saying. My parents said I was old enough to make my own choices."
She was the family's trailblazer. Her mother, brothers, an aunt and four cousins have followed her lead and gotten the implant; her father has not. Heather says her mother and brothers wanted the hearing experience but her father said he was happy with what he had.
And she hasn't lost her ties to her deaf upbringing. She succeeds in the hearing world, and at home she lives the deaf culture because her father chose not to get the implant.
Her athletic achievements are filled with similar dualities. She's a pass-first, defensive-minded point guard who led her team in scoring. She's an incredibly quick midfielder who does her best work away from the ball and on defense.
Basketball is her first love, and she started playing when she was 5. She played with boys. They didn't care that she was a girl, or that she was deaf. Only that she could play.
Those basketball skills are a big reason why the Glen Cove girls lacrosse team (8-2) is in the running for Conference V's lone playoff berth. Her sense of sight is highly tuned, so she reads the field like a point guard; her specialty is setting picks and allowing those around her to benefit.
It's not always easy on the lacrosse field. If she's too far away, she might miss what her coach says, and if there's wind, she says she might as well still be deaf. But her teammates ease things for her. They know to relay messages; they've developed signs that can quickly be delivered on the fly to let her know what's going on.
"I'm lucky to have a team that understands," she said. "The team is what makes me what I am."
She's always willing to return the favor. When they needed a goalie, Artinian volunteered and played the entire game without the ability to hear because her device wouldn't fit under the helmet. Glen Cove lost that game, 11-10, in overtime, Artinian made 10 saves but was done in by free-position shots and plays from behind the goal because she couldn't hear the whistle.
It wasn't the first time she played without hearing. The device broke when she was whacked in the head by a stick halfway through a game at West Hempstead.
"She comes running up and says 'Coach Gow, I'm deaf,' " her coach Jacquie Gow said. "I was like 'yeah I know Heather.' And she said 'no, the implant broke, I'm really deaf.' "
It was no big deal. She stayed in and played the whole game.