GROVE CITY — It’s a Thursday night, and 7-year-old Madison Miller is home with her family after a long day at the playground.

Sitting in the dining room, Madison pulls out a strand of Silly Bandz and begins to arrange them one by one on the table.

From bunnies to flowers, she seems proud of her collection, and is happy to display it for all to see.

But aside from her toys, Madison has other possessions she is proud to display.

They include a stuffed graduation bear, a homemade storybook titled “All About Ears” and a memory frame signed by each of her classmates.

Madison, who was diagnosed with moderate-severe hearing loss at birth, recently graduated from the first-grade program at DePaul School for Hearing & Speech in Pittsburgh.

She will enter first grade at Highland Primary Center in Grove City this fall.

“We’re very proud of her,” said Madison’s father, Jim.

At birth, the only sounds Madison could hear were loud noises. At 6 months, she was given hearing aids that significantly improved her abilities.

She participated in hearing and speech therapy at home and learned sign language. At age 3, she began schooling at North Liberty (Township) Presbyterian Church.

By age 4, however, something was different. Madison’s behavior changed, causing her parents to fear that something was wrong.

And something was wrong.

Madison’s hearing loss had progressed from moderate-severe to severe-profound, leading doctors to recommend that she be fitted with a cochlear implant.

Cochlear implants Ð sometimes called “bionic ears” Ð utilize electrodes to allow a patient to hear new sounds.

And for the Millers, deciding whether to give Madison an implant was not easy.

“For us to decide for her to be given an implant was a huge, huge decision. Because we had to eliminate her hearing. You never go back from cochlear,” Jim said.

Cochlear implants are highly controversial among the hearing-impaired community because they lead to a complete restructuring of the way a person hears and can sometimes be ineffective.

But when Madison stopped using sign language altogether, her mother Renee knew a cochlear implant was the right choice.

“She wanted to talk and I think that’s what made us do an implant, because she’s always been an auditory child,” Renee said.

The implant proved to be successful for Madison, who began hearing more sounds as the days progressed.

“She could hear the birds outside, the dog’s nails on the wood floor, just little things that you kind of take for granted,” Renee said of Madison’s progress.

Shortly after she received her first of two implants, Madison began attending classes at DePaul.

Her parents were nervous and skeptical, questioning whether DePaul was the right fit for Madison.

But after one visit to the school, they were ready to enroll her.

“We walked into this kindergarten class, and when we heard the way other children at Madison’s level were speaking, we just knew,” Renee said.

DePaul takes an auditory/oral approach to learning, teaching its students to “listen and speak through immersion in a language-rich environment.”

The school employs an audiologist, psychologist, speech language pathologists and several therapists on its staff, all of whom work regularly with the students.

Madison’s parents say one of the greatest gifts their daughter was given through her three years at DePaul is her strong ability to speak.

“She’s talking so amazingly and we are very happy,” Jim said.

Madison’s speaking ability is only one of the qualities that will help her when she begins school this fall at Highland.

And for those people who have spent time preparing her for the transition, each and every one believes she is ready.

“She spent several Fridays with us just kind of meeting the teacher and getting used to the routines and you would have thought she would have been with us all year. She just did a great job,” said Jennifer Connelly, principal of Highland.

Those Fridays Madison spent at Highland were part of what DePaul calls a “partial mainstreaming” process, during which its students spend one day a week in their new school for the last quarter of the year.

The process also involves in-servicing, which allows a student’s family to meet with staff from both DePaul and the new school at the same time.

After doing an in-service at Highland, Dave Williams, administrative director and transition coordinator at DePaul, said he has no concerns about Madison’s transition to Grove City schools.

“I have been really impressed, to be honest, with the staff in the Grove City School District, especially at Highland Primary. They have been extremely cooperative and collaborative and just very open minded with this transition,” Williams said. “It just makes me feel so good about this being the right place for Madison to be. I feel real positive about her placement in the school district because of how welcoming the staff has been at her school.”

Madison says she is excited to begin school at Highland. And if there’s one thing her parents believe won’t stop her from doing well, it’s her implants.

“It’s not a disability to her. It doesn’t hold her back from anything,” Renee said.