But The Hills Citizen of the Year Yvonne Keane says she simply does what any other mother would do.

As co-president of Kellyville's Hear the Children Early Intervention Centre, a free early intervention service that teaches hearing impaired children from six weeks to six years old to listen and speak, Mrs Keane has been able to provide the "miraculous gift of speech".

Mrs Keane told the News that every new sound, word, phrase or sentence uttered since she took over the service inspires her.

"I'm not joking when I say miracles happen at Hear the Children," she said.

"My very favourite personal moment was when my son was one-and-a-half and we were brushing our teeth together in the bathroom and he stopped and looked up at me and said clearly, and for the very first time, 'I love you Mummy,"' Mrs Keane said.

"I blinked back tears and said, 'Wow, I am so happy that we taught you to speak!"'

Mrs Keane's son Asher, who has a mild bilateral hearing impairment, had been enrolled at Hear the Children within St Gabriel's School for Hearing Impairment for five months when she was told the service would close due to lack of funding.

Initially devastated, Mrs Keane said there was no other service west or north-west of Strathfield that offered the same type of therapy for hearing-impaired pre-schoolers.

"It just made sense that we would take on this wonderful service and continue it as a community run business model," she said.

"Of course we had no seed money, no funding and no premises, but we didn't let that get in our way."

At Hear the Children kids learn to first listen and then speak, rather than lip reading and speaking, or signing, to speak naturally so they can attend a mainstream school.

A representative from the centre said Hear the Children could not have survived without Mrs Keane's dedication to marketing, fund-raising and event management.

Mrs Keane said some parents had previously been told by an expert it was likely their child would never speak.