An entire family learned 'Happy Birthday' in sign language - so they could sing to their deaf baby on his first birthday.<br /><br />Tiny Augustine Morar, one, lost his hearing at just a few months old due to having a rare genetic condition.<br /><br />Nobody else in the family is deaf - so they began learning sign language so Augustine could grow up able to communicate.<br /><br />His mum, Kristen Morar, 33, decided for his first birthday that the whole family should sign 'happy birthday' while singing it.<br /><br />The wholesome moment, on May 27, 2023, saw the whole family gather round to sign - captured on camera.<br /><br />Kristen, from Orange County, California, US, said: "Before Augustine, nobody knew sign language in our family.<br /><br />"Now we're learning sign language - he'll have a cochlear implant when he is older but we want him to have the option to sign or talk.<br /><br />"I had to google how to sign happy birthday - we've just taken the approach of teaching people phrases when we're around them.<br /><br />"Our friends and family do everything they can to communicate with him.<br /><br />"We want him to grow up knowing there's no shame in being deaf."<br /><br />Augustine started having health problems at just a few months old when he stopped eating.<br /><br />When he was hospitalised with low blood sugar, doctors thought it was a one-off.<br /><br />But over the next few months it got worse - he also began to lose his hearing and he had difficulty moving.<br /><br />By seven months old, he was confirmed to be profoundly deaf - and was diagnosed with a rare condition called Mitchell syndrome.<br /><br />The newly diagnosed neurological illness is caused by a rare genetic mutation which attacks the nerves which control hearing, movement and vision.<br /><br />There is no available cure for the condition recently named after Mitchell Herndon, the first person to be diagnosed, who died in October 2019, aged 19.<br /><br />There have only been a handful of known cases in the world - Augustine being one of them.<br /><br />But despite the diagnosis, Augustine seems to be progressing well - and the family hope he'll continue to thrive.<br /><br />They reckon his positive progress could be down to giving him vitamin B2 - but the future remains largely unknown due to how rare the disease is.<br /><br />Kristen said: "We can't predict the future but we have all the hope in the world he will do well and we have to have faith."
