Cooper, a two-year-old boy, was born deaf.  Recently, he was given a cochlear implant to help his hearing.  To test it out, they asked his mother to speak to him, with heartwarming results.

In the US alone, 12,000 babies a year are born with at least partial hearing loss. A cochlear implant essentially serves as a replacement ear; you might notice Cooper has a hearing aid. That hearing aid is attached to, essentially, a speaker with a small wire that goes past the eardrum into a net of electrodes in his ear. Essentially, it's just sending sound past the damaged parts of his ear and going straight to the parts that process sound.

If that sounds like a difficult surgery, it is: the wire has to be installed in bone, and there's always risk. Cooper won't be able to hear like you or me just yet: the technology isn't advanced enough, although they're developing new and better ideas all the time. But somehow, we think he just cares that he can finally hear his mom.

More From TheFW