Stories in the Air was formed in 1997 by Barbara McDermitt, a professional hearing storyteller and Brenda Young, a Deaf BSL user to embark on a Scottish tour of signed storytelling. In 1999, Stories in the Air was set up as a charity to improve the communication skills of deaf children and young people; to promote the art of signed storytelling through workshops, performances and to provide British Sign Language (BSL) resources. It is now a company limited by guarantee (Scottish company number 254287) and is registered in Scotland as a charity (no. SC029251). Its Board of Directors meet regularly to work on the various projects that they have in hand.

Its aims and objectives are to promote the study, practice and knowledge of signed storytelling in the Deaf community; to promote self-esteem and creative expression of deaf school children; to address the necessity of parents being able to communicate with their deaf babies; and to develop their early literacy skills. Its primary aim is to introduce deaf babies and toddlers to starter picture books, and to improve the reading, creative story-making and communication skills of deaf children from pre-school upward.

For all babies, language and communication are the beginning of learning and understanding. Early communication between parents and their deaf babies is vitally important and learning together is a bridge to literacy.

We discovered that there was a lack of BSL teaching materials, particularly aimed at very young deaf children. We therefore decided to produce our own CD-ROMs that would address their communication and early literacy needs. So far, we have produced the BSL Dictionary, BSL Numeracy and Sign Bridge to Literacy CD-ROMs, and the learnbsl.org website. These resources are for use by anyone interested in communicating with a deaf child. They have also been found to be beneficial in working with children with a variety of speech and language disorders.

Stories in the Air continues to actively seek funding to promote and develop these objectives.

- Thelma Petty, Chair