Can sign-language help people with speech difficulties?

I remember meeting a man in his 20’s who’d lost most of the use of his voice box as a result of a car crash. He was learning sign fast! So when I met Joyce, pictured here with her son David recently, this question arose again. She has had a tracheotomy and is the third person we have met who has speech difficulties and for whom sign-language could make communication easier. Thanks to Janine at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre and Grace Academy’s Auction of Promises, for their student’s Africa trip, we were able to take Joyce and Dave to a signed performance of ‘Allo Allo’.