A couple of days ago I was contacted by a Ukrainian project called ABC, Talk with Me who have developed a new mobile app which could be of great interest to the autism community. Apart from being the father of a child with autism I also had a grandmother who lived for a few years in Kiev (where the company is based. I’m also a major fan of social media as a way of supporting the autism community.

They asked if I could help them put the word out so given my family circumstances I agreed.

Now I’ve not used the app so I’d be very grateful if you do decide to download it you would use the comments box below to share your thoughts about it. I will then share back with ABC Talk with Me.

You can download the app here.

As some background to the app ABC, Talk with Me have shared “Each year, the number of autistic children increases by 10-13%. Therefore today it is critical to enhance social adaptation of autistic children. Overcoming language barriers of children with special needs is one of the top priorities. For these children to gain language skills, a hard work of parents and teachers is required. Giving a kid an opportunity to express his or her emotions and desires means a better adaptation of this kid in society and in the family.

The new program ABC, Talk with Me! – is state-of-the-art level of education of children with special needs. Its main element and integral component is augmented reality, which has a direct impact on the imagination. The program also improves one’s memory and attention, as well as motor nerves and language skills (reading, perception of pronounced words and speaking) through the study of foreign languages.
We have accumulated and analysed a large enough bulk of information on the characteristics of children with autism and the Asperger syndrome in order to make sure that our program fully meets the needs of young users. First of all, it was necessary to use the visual aspect, because the image effectively promotes one’s imagination. As they say – seeing is believing!

Secondly, in addition to entertaining elements, the program should definitely contain educational blocks as well. Thus, a new knowledge is acquired by playing a game that promotes a better perception of this new knowledge.

For example, if one’s tablet or phone is aimed at the alphabet block with some letter of the alphabet, our new application will turn this letter into a picture with animation. For children who have successfully reached the next game level, the new task is to make words out of blocks with letters. At this stage, a cartoon animation appears in front of them. Putting together such letters as D, O and G results in appearance of a nice doggy at the tablet or phone screen. A child can improve his or her pronunciation by repeating the narrator’s words.

The project founders believe that together we can make the lives of other people more interesting and easy. If you don’t stay indifferent to these problems, you can contribute to making these big differences!”