"When you're trying to explain a new thing, you take note of it more closely, because signing requires you to describe the details," says Esther Freeman, mum of four-year-old Jasmine, who was born profoundly deaf.
"If I was describing a crow to my two year-old [hearing] son Benjamin, I might say 'look at that bird. It's not a duck, it's a crow.' Whereas with Jasmine, I'd have explained about the black feathers, the way it walks, the way its head rocks, and signing all that takes much longer."
Learning British Sign Language (BSL) has been a journey into another culture for the Freeman family, and one that hasn't always been easy since Jasmine's diagnosis of profound deafness at the age of 12 months.
The diagnosis prompted a number of questions, including how would Esther and her husband Peter communicate with their daughter? And how could they teach her a language they didn't know themselves?
The Freemans' efforts to get to grips with BSL have required hard work. But – a little to Esther's surprise – the wider community of BSL users has been overwhelmingly supportive.
"When we first Googled 'deaf community', we were a bit terrified because they seemed very grumpy," she recalls with a grin. "It seemed that if you'd even considered having an (cochlear) implant you were evil – but the people we've met haven't been a bit like that. It's opened up this whole new world."
Encouragement and acceptance of your efforts are vital when you're learning any new language, especially when, as for Esther and Pete Freeman, you're also on the steep learning curve involved in becoming new parents. The challenges they faced then – and will continue to face as their daughter gets better at BSL than they will probably ever be – is well understood by Jasmine's aunt, Catherine Burden, a teacher with experience of special needs provision.
"I had worked in a school with a hearing impairment unit, and had an idea of the difficulties the family were likely to face," she says. "And I really felt for Esther and Peter, the frustration of them wanting to communicate with their daughter and that they're doing that in their second language."
She says it would have been "unthinkable" not to be able to communicate with her niece. By lucky coincidence, she had completed her BSL Level 1 several years before and knowing "it wouldn't be enough," she decided to embark on Level 2. Jasmine's grandparents have done the same, though grandmother Gwyneth Craker says that it would have been more useful if there had been a course designed for communicating with children, rather than the standard curriculum that uses adult terminology and concepts.
Despite the family's commitment to learning BSL, it's not always easy for people who need to learn the language to enroll on a course.
"At the moment, there seems to be a massive postcode lottery [in provision]," says Ian Noon, head of policy and research at the National Deaf Children's Society. "Some families are fortunate to get lots of support for free. Others live in areas where they are forced to pay hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds just to learn to communicate with their child. Some families have been forced to chose to decide which parent can learn sign language because they cannot afford the costs."
This, he says, is unacceptable. And it's not hard to see why, when it's known that early communication within the family is the strongest influence on language development at the age of two.
"Failure to get this right means that deaf children will have poor language skills throughout their life," Noon explains. "This does immense damage to their life chances and to their emotional wellbeing."
Figures show that 63% of deaf children failed to achieve five good GCSEs in 2012, and Noon says evidence suggests that 40% of deaf children experience mental health problems, as compared with 25% of hearing children. Helping deaf children gain fluency in their first language should be an urgent priority. "We need more support from local authorities and central government to deliver a step change in provision of sign language courses for families," he says.
Having enrolled Jasmine in a school for deaf children where she is learning BSL as her first language, Esther says that she is streets ahead of both her parents.
"She's better than me in many ways," she says. "I'll often sign something to her and she'll sign it back in the correct grammar. My vocabulary might be broader at this point, but in terms of telling an interpretative sequence, she might have a better grasp of how to go about it."
Jasmine and her younger brother sign to each other, and Benjamin now signs in preference to talking. "I can see a time in the future when they'll sit in the back of the car and have conversations without us knowing."
At home, the family use a mixture of communication methods. There's the option of just speaking, which means Jasmine is left out of the conversation entirely, then there's Sign Supported English – where you sign and speak together – or they'll use BSL by itself.
It's a strain to use your second language all the time, Esther admits, and with two small children, it adds an extra element of effort when so much of daily life is already hard work. But she and her husband have seen enormous improvement in their skill levels when they've committed to "turning our voice off".
Signing, she adds, "when you see it done properly, it's stunning, so expressive. And people have different signing voices and accents".
Clearly, Jasmine's family are making every effort to ensure that she is fluent in BSL and have the resources to support her as she learns to read and write in English as her second language. But not all families have the same opportunities and the National Deaf Children's Society says this must change.
"It's a false economy not to provide this support to families," says Noon. "If we don't get support for early communication right, we are condemning deaf children to a life of dependency and frustrated potential."
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