Film follows Arlington Heights family's tough decision on cochlear implants

Jill Stark and her two children are playing at the park when a plane flies overhead. All three of them look up at the same time.

Nothing remarkable about it, except that Jill, her daughter Melissa and her son Jeffrey are all deaf. They heard the plane noise through cochlear implants.

That tiny moment is just one of thousands captured in a new documentary, "Louder Than Words," that for seven years follows Jill and Michael Stark, a deaf Arlington Heights couple who decide to get cochlear implants for their two children, a decision that comes with some controversy in the hard-of-hearing community.

"Louder Than Words" is the first film produced by Naperville filmmaker Saj Adibs, who will submit it to the Sundance Film Festival later this month. A Kickstarter fundraising campaign is available online to help Adibs put the finishing touches on the film.

Adibs met the Stark family in 2008 and knew their story was unique. While most hearing parents are quick to get cochlear implants - surgically implanted electronic devices - for their deaf children to help them hear and speak better, in the deaf community the choice the Starks made is not so simple or common.

Jill and Michael Stark's son, Jeffrey, was diagnosed as profoundly deaf at 11 months. Jill said it was an emotional and confusing time. They experimented with different hearing aids, but they weren't helping Jeffrey.

They then started researching another option - the cochlear implant.

"It was somewhat a difficult decision because we didn't want to lose any of our deaf friends," Jill said in an email interview. She and Michael met when he was acting with a deaf theater group.

"It seems that if we pursue cochlear implant as an option, we are abandoning our deaf identity for our children, or even robbing our children from their true deaf identity," Jill wrote of the stresses that came with the decision-making process.

"It is frustrating that some people associate the attitude of 'audism' with cochlear implants," she said, referring to the notion that people who can hear are superior. "It should not be, because the cochlear implant itself is just a tool (that) helps one have the access to sounds, just like hearing aids. Nothing else."

The family still uses sign language as its primary communication tool.

The Starks decided on the implants for Jeffrey, who got them at 17 months.

"It was our child and we only wanted what we felt was best," she said. "We learned not to talk about politics, religion or cochlear implants with anyone."

When Melissa was born two years later they had a similar decision to make. Melissa got her implants at 9 months.

"Watching them learn to speak and hear literally blew us away," Jill said.

They were able to pick up "S" sounds with ease, something that took Jill and Michael years of speech therapy and work with hearing aids to do.

The implants were not quick fixes. It took years of therapy and practice, but both Jeffrey and Melissa, now 9 and 7, have moved into general education classrooms.

That doesn't mean they've left the deaf world behind.

"Using American Sign language is part of who they are," Jill said. "And it's fun."

Eventually, Jill decided she wanted to hear her children's voices and got cochlear implants herself. At 33, it was a very different experience than for her children, who got them while their brains were still in the early stages of development.

She's learned to appreciate music, for example, but still needs a visual aid to follow it.

Adibs said the Stark family's story spoke to him as both a filmmaker and as a father.

"Raising a child is nowhere near as difficult for me as it is for these parents," he said. "In their case, they did something that their entire community didn't want them to do and they did it because it was all about their kids. That really inspired me."

Adibs and the Stark family hope "Louder Than Words" will be a bridge between the deaf and hearing worlds. Jill said it was a way for them to tell their story, though they aren't trying to tell other families what to do.

"Just do what you feel is best for your deaf children," she said. "We all as parents naturally want our children to take the path next to us and go further than we could ever dreamed possible."