Ryley Duford, a senior at Polson High School, has about 90-95 percent hearing loss. However, he stays very active and takes part in Pirate football and wrestling, volunteered for the Little Guy Wrestling program, was a homecoming king candidate, has been on the honor roll, and is participating in his second year of Building Trades, a program where PHS students build a house for high school and college credit; he will receive an associate degree by graduation.
Ryley's mother, Julie Duford, says that Ryley's hearing impairment was discovered when he was about 22 months. “They told us he would never talk,” she said. “His hearing level is so bad that I compare it to listening to a radio that's not tuned in, where you really have to strain,” Julie said. “I mean, he hears noises, but it's distorted and he has to lip-read and pick out the information and try to piece it together to figure out what somebody's talking about. If somebody changes subjects, you know how you do that, mid-topic they go off onto another tangent, he's totally lost.”
Julie said, “Before we realized it, like in wrestling, they'd be showing him a move not to do, and Ryley didn't know that they were saying, ‘Don't do this.' He was thinking they said. ‘Do this,' and so he would do it, and it was wrong. If he's going to participate, he needs Pam to clarify and interpret for him.”
When it comes to communicating with Ryley during football, PHS head coach Scott Wilson said, “Basically, most of our communication is through Pam. She comes to all of the practices and the games, travels with us on the team bus. There are certain times when she is not available and then you just make sure that you grab Ryley and have him look at you so that he can read your lips and try to communicate with him that way.”
Being hearing impaired brings a new set of challenges to playing football. “The thing that I've been amazed with Ryley, probably the biggest difficulty, is knowing when to stop. If he hits somebody after the whistle, then it's a late hit, and of course he can't hear the whistle. We've never had a situation throughout his career where that's actually happened ... . That's probably one of the biggest things, and he's adapted very well to that,” said Wilson.
Julie said that the school district has been very supportive in meeting Ryley's needs. “Everybody's been really good, really good,” she said.
Many people do not realize Ryley has a hearing impairment until he tells them. He said, “A lot of people, probably 70-
80 percent, don't know that I'm hearing impaired; actually, it's probably more than that. I tell them, and they really have no idea. I've had a lot of reaction from that. They're like, ‘No way!' ”
Ryley said that he does know sign language but, “I'm not very good at it because I don't have anyone to sign it to.”
After high school, Ryley said, “I might go to trade school for business management and maybe get a heavy equipment operator's license.”
Malika Erickson is a senior at Polson High School and co-editor of the Salishian, the student newspaper.
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