Hear and Say helps Jimmy discover hearing

Brisbane's Hear and Say Centre has doubled the number of children it will help hear for the first time.

While the program is largely government funded, more money is needed to transform the lives of people like little Jimmy Worrell.

Like all babies, Jimmy learns through his senses - touch, taste, sight and now after 10 months, sound.

Before today, he couldn't hear whispers, the wind, cars or trains.

"It's when you start thinking about not hearing it, when you appreciate how much is in the world around you that you would miss out on without these things," Jimmy's father James said.

"He'll go to school after four or five years in the program here and you won't the difference, other than a little bit of external hardware."

At first, the sounds are soft. The volume will gradually increase over six weeks, while intensive therapy will prepare him for school.

"Now he'll be able to hear all the range of sounds and develop normal speech and language," Clinical Manager of Radiology Beth Atkinson said.

But for now, it's the simple things like listening to the birds that the family will start with for Jimmy.

Forty Queenslanders will receive an implant this year, but Hear and Say still needs $2 million for a new centre.

Help share the joy of sound.