iPad app is gift of techies to autistic kids

A boon

A group of techies has come out with an iPad app that would allow autistic children with extreme communication challenges to connect with the world around them.

The app, called Bhol (in Hindi), is specifically designed to “suit the requirements of autistic children in Indian conditions”.

Since autism is a developmental disorder that varyingly affects a person’s communication and social behaviour, care givers often find it hard to understand the needs of children with the condition.

“Especially when they are at the lower end of the spectral disorder, it is harder for them to communicate their needs. Technology such as the app comes in handy for such children,” said Kavita Sharma, executive council member of Autism Society of India (ASI), who worked with the group of techies volunteering from SAP Labs to create Bhol.

Created on the lines of a photo album, the app allows non-communicative autistic child to display a picture on the iPad accompanied by audio or text captions to convey his/her needs.

The picture book can be enhanced as the child can take pictures of things he needs and add to the app and index it based on the frequency of his needs. “If the child needs to eat dosa, for instance, he has to point to the picture of the dosa on the app. This can be customised to the extent that any specific variant of dosa he/she likes can be saved in the app for ready communication,” Sharma added.

Project Prayas Idea for the app was born when a group of techies volunteered with the ASI. The NGO had partnered with SAP Labs in Bangalore to establish Project Prayas, a technology lab for Autistic children. “There are several apps available for non-communicable persons, but they were either costly or were very difficult to use,” said Ruchit Mathur, a techie volunteer from SAP Labs.

“It then occurred to us that we can create an app which not only suits Indian conditions, but also is easy to configure and use for the autistic children.” The team of three senior techies spoke to the parents of autistic children at the labs to identify the requirements for the app.

Ruchit said the app will be initially released for children in the labs before the wider availability. “We want to ascertain the app works fine and then release it. Based on its success, we would make it available in other (mobile) operating systems like Android and Windows,” Ruchit said.

Good for early intervention Kavita Sharma said the app is particularly useful for early intervention.

“Using technology solutions at an early stage has an impact on the child’s communicative abilities. The younger children are certainly taken to an app like this much faster than the older ones.

Hopefully, it improves the way they communicate as they grow up,” she said.