Who's that?
Doggy!
No, that's a pussy cat.
Meow, meow.
2 years old and like any toddler full of chat, she likes plenty of noise too.
But Charlotte was born profoundly deaf, like most deaf children now
thanks to screening she was diagnosed early at just six weeks
but for her parents the shock of the diagnosis was just the beginning.
We had no knowledge of deafness, we had no knowledge of communication, and the hospital were
great at telling us her hearing loss and what we should do about that but there was no
information at all about communication and what we should do.
It was decided Charlotte should have cochlear implants, they can give deaf children access to
some sound but can have limitations and when the children take them off they're still deaf.
Her parents desperate to communicate with her as soon as possible
began to learn to sign.
They've been lucky they're part of a pilot project being funded by the Northern
Irish government to encourage early communication and a sign language tutor
comes into the family home and teaches the whole family to sign for free.
It was really really helpful to be learning signs that I could communicate with my own daughter.
We find that she understands the word a lot better when
we add the sign in on top of the speech
so once she knows the sign she's already talking about it and using it in her
communication and then she learns the word afterwards.
Sara and her family hope they're on the right track now
nice and early, but according to today's report from the National Deaf Children's
Society, just under a third of parents feel they didn't get the right support
once their child was identified as deaf.
Pretend you're a dentist now, put your dentist mask on
If you have too much sweets then your teeth will fall out and then you'll have no teeth
but if you dont control yourself yourself you'll get bigger and bigger
Nine year old Kaya and her friend Morgan are thriving.
They get extra help at school, they've both got cochlear implants but they can sign too.
One more slide to show and then we're gonna do some writing. Ok, so, have a look.
For their mothers though getting the girls to this point was a struggle. Evelyn like a
quarter of parents in today's report felt that she didn't get any information on
how to communicate with her daughter.
It was very much just lets get her on track to having hearing aids
and there wasn't really much about anything else.
A child having a cochlear implant they're not the same as you and I, that's a real
misconception that people have, I have it in the street even if I meet family members
and you know in the very beginning they're like 'oh, so she can hear now'
Both Mum's say signing would have been helpful but neither could afford it
the main barrier to parents learning British Sign Language is cost
to communicate fully can cost thousands.
There is a substantial amount of time in a day
where I am communicating with Kaya as a deaf child and I cant speak sign language
she can but we're not communicating
I should be able to speak her language
but I haven't been given the chance, the opportunity to access to resources to do that
and that and there's no way that I could possibly afford that
Paying over three thousand pounds to have a conversation with your child
It's really, I think that's a shame
Almost three quarters of pre-school deaf children fail to achieve a good level of development
At Alma Park Primary School in Manchester, as elsewhere,
many deaf children arrive with language delays.
Here they try to level the playing field
Arriving at school at the age of three and a half or four with no or virtually no
language does have an impact on our children
it means that they need to acquire very accelerated learning in the first couple
of years to be able to catch up with their peers and that's a very big ask.
The children learn British Sign Language alongside their other subjects and results show
it helps improve their reading and writing but it's not just the deaf
children who are taught to sign.
The hearing children benefit from being able to communicate with their deaf peers it makes them more
accepting of disabilities and I think it encourages them all to feel that everybody's equal.
But despite good work in schools like this everyone is not equal, deaf children
are still almost twice as likely to fail to get five good GCSEs including English
and maths as other pupils.
Rebekah Afari is one of those young people, she's getting ready to resit her English language.
Profoundly deaf since birth her family paid to learn to sign but in
school she says they're still wasn't enough support to give her the same
chances as her friends.
Rebekah says this lack of support was compounded by low expectations
something she's determined to counter.
Ears off
Back in Northern Ireland and Charlotte's family want that to be true for her to
she'll be able to do anything she wants
they hope that getting her communicating as early as they can
will give her the very best start.
Goodnight, I love you.