in 1996, rachel coleman had a daughter, who was named leah. fourteen months after she was born, rachel and her husband, aaron, found out that leah was deaf since she was born. after that, the couple started to teach leah sign language, first with signing exact english (see), then with american sign language (asl),so that they could learn to communicate, becoming good signers. rachel was surprised to see that after six months, leah's sign language vocabulary had more words the vocabulary of hearing children her same age. rachel's sister emilie brown and her husband derek were teaching leah's baby cousin, alex, how to sign, and he learned it quickly also.