I came across Makaton when my little brother Lucus was born with Down's syndrome.
I sat in on a course with my Mum and Dad, we then realised not only
was it going to be a massive help to Lucus but it was going to be really
useful for my other brother, Alexander, age 2, who had just been
diagnosed with cerebral palsy after a stroke in my Mum's womb.
I continued just picking up key words and concentrated on using them
with Lucus. Then at age 11, after watching Wayne Barrow sign to songs, I
decided that I wanted to be able to do the same for Lucus.
My mum shared a video of me and it had over 30k views in a matter of
days and it made me realise that other people were interested too.
That's when Isabella Signs was created across all social media platforms.
Fast forward now 3 years, I have well over 120k followers across my
socials, including followers from around the world. And now my brother
Alexander is completely verbal, and Lucus is well on his way.
He no longer gets frustrated as we now all have a way to communicate with him thanks to Makaton.
On our Makaton journey, Lucus and I have found ourselves in lots of unique situations whilst raising awareness.
Last week we were on The One Show where they surprised me and Lucus
with my all-time favourite singer, Louis Tomlinson from One Direction,
which was a dream come true!
They also surprised me with the legendary Dave Benson-Phillips and
Zanna from The Makaton Charity. Louis asked me to introduce his first
ever live performance of his new song in Makaton.
I feel very blessed to be supported through my whole journey by The
Makaton Charity. I have purchased several of their resources including
the Core Vocabulary USB stick, which has been invaluable to me and my family. We also love that they regularly post free print out resources .
My daily sign vlogs have even helped my younger sister Indiana (6)
with her confidence: she was very shy but after filming in some of my
videos she's now no longer shy. She has also gotten great at signing!