SAN ANTONIO – Thanks to technology, Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children students are able to rehearse for a holiday play.
"All of our students wear hearing aids and cochlear implants. And they use personal assistance technology, which allows us to wear microphones and then speak to them," said speech language pathologist Stacy Adams.
Adams said towers on stage allow students to hear instructions.
"It's another source for our students that do have hearing loss in addition to our personal assistive technology," she said.
The play is an annual tradition that has been performed by students since the 1940s. This year, the theme is "An Out of This World Christmas," where space aliens have landed in Texas, and it's up to the students at Sunshine Cottage to teach them all about favorite holiday traditions.
More than 150 students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade have been practicing for several days.
Kaitlyn Bosquez, a student, explains how she listens to instructions.
"When sound vibrates into my BAHA (cochlear implant), it vibrates my head and it goes to this ear to hear," she said.
Kaitlyn has offered an formal invitation to the community to watch she and her classmates perform.
"It's fun and we worked really hard on it," she said.
Adams said it's incredible to see the progress the students have made every year.
"The amount of language growth that they've made from year-to-year, that's really what parents love to see, too," she said.