EARLIER THIS WEEK, a video went viral showing the reaction of a young boy to the actor Rob Delaney using manual sign to sign a bedtime story on the CBeebies channel. Here at the Lámh Development Office, we welcomed the excitement about the video, and hope it will encourage Irish children’s television to feature Lámh!

We we delighted to speak to journalist Aoife Barry from The Journal.ie, who was following the interest in the CBeebies video, and who wanted to find out more about Lámh use in Ireland - that there are 500 signs, that the word is spoken as the sign is made, so the emphasis is on both speech and sign, and that benefits of using Lámh signs include reducing frustration for the child or adult using Lámh. We spoke about how friends and family, and wider community, can use the signs to communicate with Lámh users, and that increasingly children who use Lámh are attending mainstream schools, where other children are Lámh to communicate with them.

We noted that so far in 2018, 3,500 family members, pre-school workers, SNAs, teachers, care staff and other communication partners have attended Lámh training.

You can read the article HERE , it's called 'Hopes that Irish children's TV will follow UK and feature Lámh signing after viral video'.