Voices of Disability: Relentless parents help deaf son build successful life

Sunday, March 15, 2009 2:17 AM EDT

BY JERRY WOLFE
Of The Oakland Press

With gentle and proper pushes here and there, Jordan Levin, who was born deaf, is on his way at 32 to a successful and full life.

“I always thought of myself as being normal,” he said in an interview after his father, Martin, wrote and self-published a 152-page book about their lives dealing with a child who was born with a disability.

The book, “We Were Relentless: A Family’s Journey to Overcome Disability” by Martin J. Levin was published by Xlibris. It went on sale Jan. 27 and is available online at www.wewererelentless.com, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders.

Martin Levin, an optometrist, and his wife, Mollene, an artist and former teacher, said they helped their son, now 32 and who will be married June 6 to Hillary Fisher, by “trying to take on the burden of what was going on.”

One remarkable thing about Jordan Levin, who graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Arts in business administration, is he could “naturally read lips,” his mother said.

Jordan, whose speech became understandable to people outside the family when he was 8, is a personal fitness trainer and motivational speaker.

He lives in a condominium in Keego Harbor.

“He has phenomenal comprehension,” Jordan’s mother said. “He can lip read what you’re saying, if you have a toothbrush in your mouth, and understand.”

“We never treated him any different at all,” said Jordan’s father, Martin. “Even when he had limited speech, we put him into situations where he had to take care of himself.”

Jordan communicates by speaking and a trained ear can hear only a slight difference from any hearing person’s speech.

Jordan graduated from Bloomfield Hills Andover.

Martin Levin said he wrote the book because, “I think his story needed to be told.”

“It is unique. Most people with this type of hearing loss do not speak, most sign,” he said referring to those who use American Sign Language to communicate. “He fits into society seamlessly.”

Jordan is a “phenomenal” water skier, snow skier and hockey player, his parents said.

“High school was a great challenge,” Jordan said, “because I had a very hard time learning material for different classes.”

At that time, doctors determined Jordan had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and gave him medication.

“From that point on, I had to learn how to study all over again,” Jordan said.

As for becoming a certified personal trainer, Jordan said it was a natural outcome of his love for sports.

“I love helping people,” he said. “One of the main things is I want to be able to teach people how to be relentless in the pursuit of dreams.

“That’s my main message,” Jordan added.

“When Jordan was younger, we told teachers to not be afraid to tell him that you don’t understand what he said,” Mollene said. “You’re helping him by doing that.”

Martin said he and his wife had to teach Jordan to identify some of the sounds he is able to hear with hearing aids. He is profoundly deaf, meaning he has far less than 30 percent of normal hearing.

When Jordan when he was growing up, “We had to let him know that a sound came from a plane, or a bird and we taught him five new words each day,” Martin said.

“You can’t naturally identify a dog barking or a phone ringing, so we had to teach Jordan what those sounds meant and where they came from,” he said.

Jordan said he loves an iPod because “I can teach myself to hear music” with it.

“It’s great, because I am able to download lyrics to a song,” he added. “I then print out the words and read them. I teach myself the songs,” he said, adding he is a “great dancer.”

“There’s not a lot of parents out there who are willing to work with a disabled child,” Martin said.

Jordan hopes to not only expand his personal training business but also do more motivational speaking.

“Two weeks ago, I spoke at an elementary school. A kid asked me where I’d be if I didn’t learn how to speak. ‘Would you be here today?’ I really couldn’t answer that,” he said.

But Jordan is here today, functioning normally, most likely because of the relentlessness of his parents — in their patience in teaching him something every day of his life and in giving him their unconditional love.

Contact Oakland Press staff writer Jerry Wolffe at (248) 745-4612 or jerry.wolffe@oakpress.com.

Jordan Spoke to 4th graders

NEWS RELEASE

DATE: February 18, 2009

DOHERTY 4TH GRADERS WILL BE HOSTING

DISABILITY AWARENESS DAY ON FEBRUARY 26

Doherty Elementary School will be conducting a Disability Awareness Day for their 4th grade students on Thursday, February 26. Students will become more aware of the needs of individuals with disabilities and how to respect people regardless of how they may look, act, talk or walk.

Students will rotate through different stations; deaf and hard of hearing, speech impairment, vision impairment, Braille, learning disability stations and physical impairment stations. Hands on interaction will be encouraged by students participating in a wheel chair obstacle course, by speaking with an electric larynx and participating in handicap accessibility activities throughout the school.
At 1:30 p.m. there will be a presentation from the Leader Dogs for the Blind organization. Then at 2:30 p.m., Jordan Levin will speak about his hearing loss, his perseverance and accomplishments.

Fierce devotion helps overcome life challenges

This article was in the West Bloomfield Eccentric on Monday. It is amazing the amount of media coverage we have gotten. I hope you enjoy reading these articles.


Jordan Levin, now 32, was born three months premature and is profoundly deaf. He earned a business degree from Michigan State University and now works as a personal trainer and a motivational speaker. (Lawrence McKee | Staff Photographer)

By Sara Callender • ECCENTRIC STAFF WRITER • February 8, 2009

Life was a lesson for Jordan Levin.

"At meal time, we would say, 'Here's a fork. Here's meat. Meat is brown. It comes from a cow,'" Jordan's dad, Martin Levin, said. "It was the same kind of thing at the grocery store."

When Jordan was about 2 years old, he was diagnosed as being profoundly deaf - if an airplane was in the back yard, Jordan would barely hear it, Martin said. So Martin and his wife, Mollene, of West Bloomfield, took on the daunting task of teaching Jordan - now 32 - how to speak.

Martin shares their inspiring story in his new book, We Were Relentless.

"I would hope that the readers gain the understan

ding to never take no for an answer," Martin said. "There is a way to get there."

Jordan's life was an "adventure" from the very beginning. He was born three months early, weighing only 31 ounces, with hands the size of a man's fingernail. The Levins were told he wouldn't survive.

But after a series of risky operations, Jordan thrived. After 59 days on a ventilator and a total of four months in the hospital, Jordan finally came home.

"We knew he would be developmentally delayed because he was born so early," Mollene said. "But by the time he was 2, he had very limited language skills, not even baby babble, so we had him tested."

Martin Leven (left) wrote a book called 'We Were Relentless.' The book is about raising a hearing-impaired son, Jordan (right) and the trials and tribulations he and his wife Mollene fought went through. (Lawrence McKee | Staff Photographer)

The best option, doctors advised, would be to teach Jordan sign language, but the Levins weren't happy with that diagnosis. Instead, they researched auditory training, a method to teach Jordan to make the most of his hearing, how to identify sounds and to speak.

To teach him the "L" sound, for example, they put peanut butter on the roof of his mouth. For a "P," they put a candle in front of him to see if he could blow it out.

"We literally started from the ground up," Martin said. "We had to teach him every single sound. Hard doesn't even do it justice because he had never heard any of these sounds. Babies learn by imitating but he couldn't hear."

In order to see positive results, the Levins knew they had to commit 100 percent to the program. Although they were speaking at a 2-year-old level, Jordan entered a normal kindergarten when he was 5.

They met resistance, though, from some teachers who thought Jordan should be enrolled in a special education class.

Throughout elementary and a middle school, Mollene met with his teachers every day to see what was being taught. She would then go home and reteach it all to Jordan.

Jordan was involved in all classroom activities - Mollene transcribed a mock trial in middle school - and he even took one semester of Spanish in high school. The Levins were determined that Jordan would have a normal life in other ways, too.

He participated in every imaginable sport, like waterskiing, swimming, hockey and baseball. He would study in the back seat of the car on the way to games and go over lessons in between innings.

Jordan never felt like he was missing out on anything.

"I never thought my life was anything other than normal until I read the book," Jordan said. "I always did what I wanted, when I wanted, and they did all the worrying for me."

Jordan graduated from Andover High School and earned a business degree from Michigan State University. He currently works as a personal trainer and gives motivational speeches.

"Yeah, school was hard but school can be hard for kids who can hear," Jordan said. "I didn't blame things on the fact that I couldn't hear or use it as an excuse. Being positive will get you a long way."