Chance's diagnosis came at an already difficult time for the young parents.

"We thought we were already at the height of our stress level," Norm Paxton said. "We had just built our home, had a newborn baby and were living with a 25 percent pay cut that would last 2 1/2 years."

The stress would escalate as the Paxtons sought to find the best help available for their son to mitigate the effects of his disability.

What they eventually found was a hearing aid that offers digital sound processing programmability, allowing different frequencies to be amplified at different levels.

Certain extraneous noises — or background sounds — can be programmed down low, while critical sounds waves can be amplified. With such a hearing aid that contains 16 different settings, Chance's hearing can be brought up to a mildly deaf level, and now Chance — who turns 5 today — is speaking and "owns" several hundred words, able to string together sentences in common conversations.

Each of his hearing aids cost $2,000, but it's been an expenditure the couple made because they felt they had little choice.

"At his age, every month is critical," said Taunya Paxton. "It's not something you can put off for a few years just because you don't have the money."

Experts who work with young hearing-impaired children agree.

"Technology has made a world of difference to hearing-impaired kids," said Marilyn Madsen, director of the south region of the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind.

"By age 5, children have developed all the basic syntactical structures of English. If the child has not had the opportunity to hear that, if the child has not had that benefit, language development is very, very, delayed."

Those delays, Madsen said, can lead to larger societal costs down the road, from requirements that more money be pumped into special-education resources in school districts to an increased likelihood that as a hearing-impaired adult, government assistance is necessary.

"The need for these devices is not just significant, it is critical," Madsen said. "It is a cheaper thing for society in the long run if we can get them amplified and on a track where they can get into regular classes."

Help is available for those who qualify.

At least three taxpayer-funded programs operating in Utah believe hearing aids to be a medical necessity and will either purchase them outright or help families afford their cost.

Medicaid, the state's Children's Health Insurance Program and Harward's bureau, also administered through the state Department of Health, offer some type of assistance as do many private foundations.