There was never any question that 13-year-old Elena LaQuatra wanted to be part of the hearing world.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Elena LaQuatra, in pink, dances with Kaitlyn McGrath, left, and Megan Hosking at the Center for Theatre Arts in Mt. Lebanon. Click photo for larger image.

The Mt. Lebanon girl lost her hearing to meningitis when she was 4.

Even though Elena was speaking at the time of her illness, the quality of her speech dramatically deteriorated after she lost her hearing. A complication with the first cochlear implant she received required that a second one be implanted. As a result, she didn't hear for 10 months.

Elena never missed a beat. Working to retrain her speech and language at the DePaul oral school, she threw herself back into the singing, dancing and acting she had done before her illness

Now a seventh-grader at Jefferson Middle School, she takes dance, gymnastics, piano and voice classes, and plays drums in the school band. Before Christmas she had one of the starring roles among local dancers in the Moscow Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker" at Heinz Hall. And this week she's competing in the Shakespeare Monologues at the Pittsburgh Public Theater.

"I think she's an amazing young lady," said Marc Field, executive director of the Center for Theater Arts in Mt. Lebanon, where she takes classes and performs. "After she lost her hearing, in terms of her spirit, she was absolutely determined that her life would be no different."

		Main story Cochlear implants take children out of the silent world

One accommodation that may be made on her behalf is that before an audition she'll get the sheet music earlier than others to help her find the key. "The whole idea of a deaf person finding the key to singing is mind boggling,'' he said.

Last month, she celebrated her birthday by organizing with a friend a dance party with a DJ.

"She needs six lives," joked her mother, Effie Alexander. "Thank God for the cochlear... She'd be totally deaf without it."