Born profoundly deaf, Pooler has gone from a shy and insecure child who had to work twice as hard as other kids in school, to a confident, happy and successful college student who is about to spend the fall semester working at Walt Disney World. There, she will get hands-on business experience, college credit — and a paycheck. She departs today.
For Pooler, now 20 and a Thomas College junior, it took hard work and a lot of courage to get to this point.
Enrolled in public schools as a child, she said she had a hard time competing with other students who could hear. If a teacher turned her back to the class and spoke, Pooler was out of the loop.
While other children were socializing after school, she was spending long hours at home working with speech and language therapists.
Using those cues and lip movements of speech helps a deaf person to understand the difference between words that appear alike when spoken.
But life was anything but easy. Ashley Pooler remembers having a wonderful teacher’s aide with her every day of high school but feeling as if the aide’s constant presence hindered her socialization with other students. She also recalls wanting to drop down to a lower level U.S. history class when she was a junior at Winslow High School because she felt inadequate when trying to keep up with other college-bound students.
But her teacher, Jeff Wickman, convinced her to stay, saying he believed in her and her ability to succeed. She ended up being a solid student in the college-preparatory level class. Wickman’s encouragement was a turning point in her life, according to both Ashley and her mother. read more
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