A three-year-old girl has mysteriously changed her character to that of an adult after being hit by a van.

Chinese toddler Ya Wen apparently began drinking beer and smoking up to a packet of cigarettes a day after being struck by a speeding van.

Her parents told the Yangcheng Evening Post she spent almost a week in a coma following the accident.

"She likes drinking," her mother said.

"Three glasses of beer is no problem to her."

Her mother, Gao Wen, said her daughter has been smoking ever since she checked out of the hospital about a year ago. "The first time I found her smoking was at the toilet," she said.

"Before that I often saw cigarette butts at the toilet and thought they were dumped by my husband."

Ya Wen is not the only toddler making headlines of late after it was revealed a two-year-old boy in Indonesia is finding it hard to break his pack-a-day habit.

Earlier this week it was reported Ardi Rizal has cut back to 15 cigarettes a day thanks to "therapy focused on playing."

Ardi shocked the world when a video of him (watch the 7News report above) smoking a cigarette appeared on the Internet last month and drew attention to Indonesia's failure to regulate the tobacco industry.

Six months after his father gave him his first cigarette, the overweight boy from Sumatra island was smoking 40 a day and threw violent tantrums if his addiction was not satisfied.

Child welfare officials called in to try to wean the toddler off cigarettes said that when they played with him he did not smoke as much.