“attractiveness is a large hurdle,” says Dr. Preeja Balan, the co-founder and Director of Octave listening toand Speech Centre in Bengaluru. we’re speakme approximately the motives why technology enabledsolutions are not very sizable within the subject of alternative and Augmentative communique (AAC) in India Balan says there is a lot of resistance amongst human beings in using devices as conversationequipment. “people need to realise that this is a very effective tool to help kids to communicate.”
AAC is used to consult any mode of conversation that can be used in location of speech or writing; theseequipment supply the potential to speak to folks who cannot speak or write. The fact is that India is some 20 years behind the West inside the adoption of AAC era solutions, in step with Ajit Narayanan, the inventor of Avaz, an app for iPads and Android drugs that offers a very cheap opportunity to highly-priced AAC devices. The Chennai born, IIT-Madras alumnus changed into operating in a technologycorporation inside the US, however this changed after he volunteered with Vidya Sagar, an agency that works with children with cerebral palsy and unique wishes.
Narayanan commenced a enterprise known as Invention Labs and labored with Vidya Sagar to analyzeAAC technology. by means of 2010, the enterprise became equipped to launch Avaz, which locateditself as a far inexpensive opportunity to current answers. “at the time, we have been looking at Avaz as a hardware answer, so we created our own tablet,” Narayanan remembers. according to a newspaperrecord from the time, similar devices from worldwide producers had been priced at Rs. 3 lakh. The Avaztool value only a tenth of that, and Narayanan tells devices 360 that it can additionally be programmed with more than one languages.
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The Avaz app
quickly after the Avaz hardware turned into released, the iPad came alongside. launched in September 2010, the iPad presented a unique opportunity for Avaz, as it added some of the traits that Narayananneeded for the Avaz device right into a suited form thing, at patron pricing. the next step turned into toredesign the software program to paintings as an iOS app, and reposition Avaz consequently. This came about fast, and the app turned into an early achievement, thank you in no small component, Narayanan says, to a whole lot of assist from Apple, which again and again featured the app in its pinnacle lists andon the front page of the App shop.
developed with a variety of input from Vidya Sagar, the app replaces phrases with photographs, so thatchildren with disabilities that prevent them from learning languages can nonetheless communicate with their households and caregivers. “For some human beings with autism, as an example, they can notabsolutely hold close the that means of phrases because language is simply too random. in case youconsider it, it’s only a random series of sounds that we’ve got decided suggest some thing,” he says. “while the pictures alternatively are a whole lot clearer and easier to understand. and then there are others who is probably able to type out words, but due to motor disabilities, it’s a task. For these kind ofhumans, Avaz offers a manner for them to speak more effectively with their households.”
basically, the app offers the users (youngsters with learning disabilities) with a chain of pictures thatmay be keyed in to talk. on the iPad, it is smooth to keep a large variety of photos, and the undertakingthat Avaz faces is to organise this in a way it’s virtually going to be beneficial to the folks that depend upon it to communicate. The app helps a couple of language, both Indian and european, and users also can add their own ‘phrases‘ – for example, a image of your grandmother, along side the phrase grandma.
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Dr. Balan praises Avaz for making voice structures greater available in India, and brought that theapplication has made it less difficult to teach unique students a variety of subjects. Avaz, and differentapps adore it, are not a magic bullet – a demo video we watched of a baby the usage of Avaz indicatesthat it nonetheless takes a bit effort and time to position sentences together and to locate the subsequent word – but Dr. Balan says that if autism is detected early, then apps including this will make amassive impact on a baby‘s existence.
Invention Labs’ cutting-edge software, FreeSpeech, which was released best currently, is going a stepfurther than Avaz. “The idea behind FreeSpeech is to create a semantic map, to help human beings toresearch languages,” explains Narayanan. essentially, he clarifies, while Avaz we could the person pick out out the phrases they need to say, FreeSpeech is a mastering tool to teach the regulations of grammar. “as an example, in case you need to say ‘I need an apple’, you want to recognize the connection between ‘I’, ‘want‘, and ‘an apple’. that’s what you’re getting to know with FreeSpeech,” he explains, “The app presents words like constructing blocks, and you can pass them round, and it predicts the phrases and prompts you to extend your sentences. you may gather the phrases right into agrammatically accurate sentence and helps train abstract principles like tenses.”
The idea is that the 2 apps will work collectively – FreeSpeech is a tool that dad and mom andinstructors can use to assist their youngsters learn the language, while Avaz is an important device that the can be used to talk. “Avaz is like your glasses, you want it with you all the time,” Narayanan adds.
five years later
it’s been five years in view that Avaz first released in India. on this time, it’s been used by round 30,000humans global, with a five,000 phrase vocabulary, and it comes with a figure schooling segment that will help parents and instructors to teach in flip the kids who rely on the app.
Localised for 6 Western languages and 7 Indian languages, Avaz has been utilized by faculties in big apple and Chicago, and it is the leading AAC application in France and Denmark. In India though, itsboom has largely been through non-public interventions, and it is only now being examined in a pilotsoftware throughout 2 hundred faculties in Tamil Nadu, for which the deployment has now not yet all started.
Avaz is likewise being used in lots of unique schools and also in speech therapy institutes. The testimonials from actual users talk for themselves – way to the app. a detailed case examine furnished viathe organization showed us some of the effect, however feedback from parents and youngsters issimilarly direct. kids who struggled to communicate with their families are able to keep fundamentalconversations with strangers. dad and mom say the app has helped their kids to communicate what mealsthey want to devour, what garments they want to wear. however in contrast to the usa or France or Denmark, there are nevertheless no massive government run programmes for AAC era in India.
“attention is a big issue in India,” says Narayanan. “This isn’t always some magic bullet that dad and momcan simply use without any history both, it is supposed to be utilized by speech therapists, and in India, there are around 2,000 speech therapists. that is less than you will discover in San Francisco on my own.”
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“inside the US, it’s obligatory with the aid of law that faculties ought to offer all facilities required by using unique youngsters with a purpose to preserve up with the opposite college students,” heprovides.
price is every other thing, in keeping with Dr. Balan. Apple’s iPads, and comparable Android pills, arerelatively area of interest merchandise in India, unlike mobile telephones. but smartphones do notgenuinely meet the needs that Avaz’s customers have, consistent with Narayanan. “The device must bewith the person the use of Avaz,” he says, “and that’s a problem due to the fact despite the fact thattelephones are sizable, they may usually be non-public devices of the parents. They need to reply calls and send messages and do many other matters from their telephones, so the phones cannot be left with the kids all the time.”
just as human beings with negative eyesight require their glasses always with a purpose to see, those who require Avaz also need to have get admission to to the tool always as a way to communicate. other than that, the smaller display length of smartphones makes them less beneficial for Avaz, and it is able tobe hard for humans with motor disabilities to press small icons.
“The Avaz app requires you to shop for an iPad, which remains costly, and the app itself additionallyisn’t always very cheap so for lots people the charge remains a hurdle,” says Dr Balan. The Avaz app isavailable on iOS for Rs. 7,000; on the other hand, Avaz for Android is even more expensive, at Rs. 10,000, since the fee is a direct greenback conversion from the united states rate of $one hundred fifty.it is to be had for 1/2 of that on both app shops proper now, thanks to a 50 percent discount for Autism Month (April) but then again, it’s not the type of aspect that an average client is selecting up.
but it truly is also the factor, in a way. “usually, AAC technology is some thing that a speech therapist will teach a infant how to use, however we do not have enough speech therapists in India,” says Narayanan. that’s why Avaz has delivered features so one can educate parents and teachers on how touse the app, the way to measure the progress of a toddler the usage of the app, and guide themthrough a plan of coaching. The idea even though is that a trained professional must be the oneguiding the use of the application. it’s why Avaz may be operating with the colleges in the course of itsplanned pilot in Tamil Nadu to train and work with the lecturers in unique faculties to properly use Avaz.
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment desires to supply each infant with a incapacity get right of entry to to the appropriate training. Avaz and other apps on this class could help with this vision.
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Tags: AAC, Ajit Narayanan, opportunity and Augmentative communique, Autism, Avaz, Cerebral Palsy,schooling, FreeSpeech, Language, unique wishes, Speech, Vidya Sagar
