For eight year old Levi Craven, the world was a totally different place. Levi was born without hearing and received a unique cochlear implant surgery by the time that he was two, giving him the ability to hear clearly. The cochlear implant is a small electronic device that’s surgically implanted in the inner ear to assist individuals with severe to profound hearing loss pick up sound. The implant works by bypassing the damaged parts of the ear and stimulating the auditory nerve with electrical currents that the brain then interprets as sound. Cochlear implants can help people understand speech in both quiet and noisy environments and most young children can even learn to speak with them, as did Levi.