Inspiring two-year-old Piper Revere has started saying her first words after a successful operation to help her to hear.

Piper was born profoundly deaf, but after a cochlear implant earlier this year she can now hear her parents Kate, 31, and Simon, 28.

Proud mum Mrs Revere, from Cherhill, said: “Piper is doing amazingly well with her cochlear implant and all of the electrodes are now working. She can hear as quiet as a whisper.

“She is making lots of noise and is starting to make sounds that can be made out as the beginning of her first words like Mama, quack, moo, baa, open and up.

“Simon and I are attending a speech and language course at the Cochlear Implant Centre at Southampton University.

“It’s amazing and really helping us with Piper’s speech and signing, as she still signs beautifully.”

Piper was born weighing just 4lbs with severely under developed lungs after her mum caught cytomegalovirus in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

After Piper was diagnosed the Revere family helped set up the Moonrakers charity, which offers support to other families in Wiltshire who have deaf children.

Nearly 40 deaf children gathered together at Cherhill Village Hall on Sunday for the second Moonrakers Christmas party.