BIONIC toddler Lam Shu-ting has something to boast about when she reaches kindergarten - a $150,000 electronic ear.
Three-year-old Shu-ting is one of about 1,200 Hong Kong children who are profoundly deaf, but she is only the second to gain a 'bionic ear' which will grant her the gift of hearing and speech.
She has now started a rush among other parents, anxious that their children should also get the benefits of electronic hearing.
Doctors at Queen Mary Hospital operated on Shu-ting last week, implanting a coin-sized device with an electrode 'tail' in the bone behind her ear.
Ear, nose and throat surgeon Dr Buddy Wong Yat-kiu said the device would receive signals from a speech processor, the size of a pager, which could be clipped to her belt or worn in a pocket.
'The electrode has 22 channels. Each stimulates a part of the cochlea, from the low frequency sounds up to high frequency sounds,' Dr Wong said.
'This means that, for the first time, she will receive sound. It will be a very strange sensation for her. Imagine if you cannot hear, if you have never heard. You have no perception of sound, of speech.