A FOUR-year-old boy who has severe learning difficulties is being helped to talk, thanks to his amazing relationship with a pet macaw.

Until recently, Dylan Hargreaves had a vocabulary of just 10, one-syllable words after being diagnosed with a series of problems three years ago.

But his parents have been amazed by his progress after he began listening to his mother teaching the family's pet bird, Barney.

For as Michelle, 33, of Broughton Close, Blackburn, tells the bird a new word, Dylan has started to say it too.

He has already learned how to say ta' and bye' through listening to the macaw in the last few months.

And now his parents believe he is just days away from saying his first two-syllable word - Barney!

Michelle was given Barney as birthday present in January last year by her partner Rob, who shares her surname.

She said: "Every time I gave the bird something to say Dylan started trying to say the same thing.

"I think it's because the bird says it slower than me, which helps Dylan to understand it better.

"He has changed my life and Dylan's because before he would not even have attempted words with two syllables."

Dylan is also receiving help from a speech therapist and community nurse, and gets help from a support assistant at St James C of E primary school, where he started as a pupil last September.

But he was left devastated when Barney flew away as he was being brought inside from his aviary last Wednesday and was lost overnight.

The family delivered 600 leaflets, put up posters and contacted the RSPCA to notify them about the bird.

Michelle, who cares for her son full-time with her partner, said the family was ecstatic when someone rang up to say the bird had landed in their garden 1.5 miles away on New Wellington Close.

She said: "We did not know what to say to Dylan. He kept asking where's Barney?'"

"We were heartbroken and devastated. Barney is my baby, he calls me mum."

"He was shouting from the lady's garden Hello there'.

"She went out and saw him and he started saying Come in' "I went to get him and he flew right onto me. I was ecstatic.

"Now we have him back and it's like winning the lottery."

Rob, Michelle's partner of three years, said: "There is no doubt Dylan copies the bird and it has led to an improvement in his speech."