Four-year-old Maddison Magee's world was transformed from a wall of silence into an explosion of sound after she underwent cochlear implant surgery to her left ear in the week before her second birthday.

Since then, she has astonished her parents Simon and Adele, of Bold, by developing her speech so rapidly that she is now near the top of her class at St Anne's Catholic Primary School, Sutton.

Adele, 34, said: "Maddison is our little miracle. Before the operation she could only hear something like a very loud siren - even with her hearing aids in. She couldn't hear any speech whatsoever. Now she can listen to the birds singing in the trees and speak to all her friends and family. She's a bubbly little chatterbox now!

"It was a tough decision to let her undergo surgery at such a young age, especially when it's a four and a half hour operation. But doctors told us her hearing aids alone would never be powerful enough to help her speak. Maddison was so brave throughout it all - she was a star. It was the best decision we ever made."

Maddison was first fitted with hearing aids at just 11-weeks-old after her deafness was picked up by doctors at Whiston Hospital during newborn screening.

But Adele says that although the devastating news was 'a bombshell' at the time, she now thanks her lucky stars that Maddison's deafness was picked up at such an early stage because she is now age-equivalent.

Maddison's cochlear implants are clever electronic devices which enhance her hearing and speech ability.

Made up of two parts, an internal device and a speech processor, the implant sits in a shallow bed drilled out of her skull while the speech processor sits on top of the ear like a conventional hearing aid.

Sound enters the micropohone of the speech processor and is converted into an electrical signal before the sound is transmitted to the internal receiver by a stream of tiny electrical pulses, which provide the sensation of hearing.

Adele added: "When they first switched the implant on Maddison wasn't even responding to her name. We were really worried so they turned the volume up and, all of a sudden, she was turning around to every single noise. It was wonderful.

"She amazes me every single day and just seems to get stronger and stronger. We've even been offered a cochlear implant for her right side but she's making such good progress we're holding back at the moment because the operation destroys any natural hearing in the ear. Who knows what technology might be available to her in ten years time?"