Born with hearing loss, she found her voice on the musical theatre stage

Sabrina Wong, 21, is on the cusp of graduating with a degree in musical theatre from LASALLE College of the Arts, a path once considered a 'wild dream' due to her moderate-to-severe hearing loss in both ears.

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Spending my kindergarten years without hearing aids shaped my shy and somewhat introverted personality. Since I couldn’t hear what others were saying, that led me to live in my own world.

Born with the condition, Wong didn't consistently wear hearing aids until age five or six. Early struggles with bulky devices and advice from doctors to forgo them contributed to a shy, introverted personality. She often felt excluded, retreating into 'my own world' as she couldn't fully grasp conversations.

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Because I didn’t start wearing hearing aids until I was around five, I missed out on an important phase in language and speech learning.

Her speech development was also impacted, leading to a lisp and difficulties with certain sounds. Wong explains that missing early language development meant she overcompensated for sounds like 's' and 'z,' making them louder when she couldn't hear them clearly without her aids. Academic work also took significantly longer, sometimes double the time.

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With my hearing loss, I can hear higher-frequency sounds, but not much mid-frequency or slightly higher low-frequency sounds. So when I’m not wearing hearing aids, sounds like ‘s’ and ‘z’ are very loud to me. I would overcompensate by pronouncing those sounds louder, which resulted in incorrect pronunciation (and which contributed to the lisp).

While hearing aids have improved her interactions, Wong notes the electronic nature of the devices differs from natural hearing. She finds certain background noises, like those on the MRT or in windy areas, overwhelming because the aids don't filter them as natural ears would. Despite these challenges, she is set to graduate and has performed in several college productions.

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It gets really loud for me on the MRT or in windy places because our ears would naturally filter out these sounds. Hearing aids are electronic instruments, so the sound produced can s