MISSION & OUTREACH

Centennial pitcher Lexi Vernon never needed sign language. She can read lips, if she has to, but only uses that skill if necessary.

In essence, Vernon suffers no ill affects from the congenital hearing loss she's had to navigate through since she was born.

But that doesn't mean the Lady Cougars sophomore, who has Power 5 college interest from schools like Iowa and Indiana, hasn't had a difficult path to walk. While a Cochlear implant allowed Vernon to hear, she and her family, had to play catch-up from a condition that should have been caught days after she was born in December of 2007.

“I WANT TO HELP ONE MILLION PEOPLE TO HEAR AND LIVE TRANSFORMED LIVES full of learning, literacy, employment and CONNECTION to the world around them.”

In a study that tracked 639 adults for nearly 12 years, Johns Hopkins expert Frank Lin, M.D., Ph.D., and his colleagues found that mild hearing loss doubled dementia risk. Moderate loss tripled risk, and people with a severe hearing impairment were five times more likely to develop dementia.