is one of eight children with hereditary hearing loss born to a former musician, who had progressive hearing loss. Daniel began losing his hearing when he was in his early twenties, forever dashing his dream of becoming a professional musician and song writer. Now in his fifties, Daniel’s hearing loss is so profound that he must read lips to understand conversations and can't hear himself play his beloved guitar.

When his hearing began to go, a despairing Daniel turned his frustrated creative talents to the visual arts, first creating small objets d 'art for the home and eventually becoming a successful architectural artist. With inspiration and encouragement from Janice, his wife and design partner, Daniel took his art to a new level when he redesigned their guest house in the image of a small California Mission that had appeared in one of Janice's dreams. Daniel approached the redesign project the way a musician might approach a composition. He mixed different tones, colors, shapes and cultural influences to evoke a "world beat" ambiance. The result was a folksy fusion of styles that was uniquely Daniel's and resonated with everyone who visited their home to see "The Little Mission."

This project, along with some of Daniel's furniture art, sacred altars and other design work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times and a design book called California Cottage Style. Yet, for all his success in visual and architectural arts, Daniel longed to write songs again, to hear the sounds of voices, nature and most of all, music. Daniel's father, Joe, had received a cochlear implant (CI) at the House Clinic in his 70s and did very well with it, but Daniel was still hesitant to take that step. Janice began researching the latest CI technology and persuaded Daniel to visit the House Clinic to find out more.

They met with Clinic audiologist Dawna Mills, Au.D., who'd fitted Daniel's father with his implant. Dawna offered encouraging news. Implant technology had advanced in recent years, and Daniel's hearing tests indicated that he was an excellent candidate for the implant. An exam with Clinic neurotologist William M. Luxford, M.D., confirmed Daniel's candidacy and his surgery was scheduled. Through it all, Daniel expressed his desire to hear music, even as his audiologist reminded him to have realistic expectations and focus on speech discrimination as a primary goal.

As a cochlear implant user, Daniel has excelled at speech discrimination, achieving unusually high results on all his early speech discrimination tests. "Daniel was both overwhelmed and disappointed by the sounds he heard through his cochlear implant at initial stimulation, and this reaction is fairly typical among new implant patients," said Dawna. "Although his early reactions were typical, his early results were way above-average, which has been really exciting to see, and he'll continue to do better and better."

Daniel brought his acoustic guitar for a follow-up session with Dawna, to map the threshold levels of the sound signals he's receiving through his cochlear implant. Daniel hoped that by mapping his implant software while he was playing guitar, Dawna could help him hear the pitch and tone of the chords. "Although the technology isn't quite there yet, I wanted to work with Daniel in mapping his implant so that he could hear his guitar better,” Dawna said. Daniel's family is so thrilled with his results that two of his sisters have received cochlear implants at the House Clinic. The family is also participating in a study of hereditary hearing loss at the House Ear Institute.