As four fit, healthy and sports loving teenage young men we have never really thought about how our lives could have different if we had been diagnosed with a hearing loss like the 7,200 children under 5 living with hearing loss in the UK.
Attending school, taking part in sports, spending time with friends and family has just been a natural part of our lives and now we are all at university working towards our dreams and ambitions.
Before we heard about Auditory Verbal UK we were just like one in three adults in the UK and did not know that deaf children can learn to speak as well as hearing children and not only that we had never stopped to think what that might mean to them to achieve all the things we take for granted.
Auditory Verbal UK is challenging the perceptions of what deaf children can achieve and wants every deaf child to have the same opportunities as their hearing peers – the same opportunities that we have been afforded throughout our lives.
80% of children who attend the AVUK early intervention programme for two or more years have listening and spoken language skills equivalent to a hearing child and many attend mainstream school.
But more people need to be aware of this specialist therapy which is the norm for deaf children in other countries like Canada and Australia so that more specialists can be trained and more deaf children in the UK can have the chance to choose auditory verbal therapy close to their homes.
By running the London Landmarks Half Marathon we hope we can raise some money to help more deaf children but more importantly make more people like us see what deaf children can achieve given support.
Sponsor us – it is very early on a Sunday morning for any student to be running a half marathon!

Patrick Warriner