Teen wins state award

• By SONYA KIMBRELL
• Ascension staff writer
• Published: Mar 13, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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GONZALES — Joshua Medernach, 15, likes school now.

That wasn’t always the case.

The Gonzales Middle School student recently was honored by the Louisiana Council for Exceptional Children with a “Yes I Can” award for academics.

Medernach was born with severe to profound senorineural hearing loss.

He needs a Cued Speech transliterator to go with him to each class.

Wendy Sheets has been Medernach’s transliterator since he came to Ascension Parish.

Cued Speech is a system of communication used by some deaf and hard of hearing people. It uses handshapes, which represent consonants, in different locations near the mouth, which represents vowels.

Medernach moved to Ascension Parish from Illinois just before he entered the fifth grade.
That was the first year he was mainstreamed into a regular classroom, said Cheryl Russell, his hearing-impaired resource teacher, who nominated him for the award.

He said that he hasn’t always liked school socially or done well academically.

Now, though, he makes straight As and participates in football and track.

Medernach said there have been times that he has felt like giving up on school because of the difficulty in studying and fitting in socially.

“As people get older, they’re more understanding,” he said.

“I looked at his school records and saw his improvement,” Russell said, “He’s self-motivated and doesn’t let his hearing loss affect his performance.”