Brother develops an app completely free of charge for non-verbal communication.

The Calder family have a nonverbal 14-year-old daughter named Della with a rare genetic condition called Bainbridge-Ropers Syndrome and a son,16-year-old brother Archer, who was shocked at the prices for the apps while scrolling through the app store, in order to find one to help his sister better communicate. These type of apps are far too expensive for this family, since as many others with individuals who have conditions that make it difficult or impossible for them to communicate verbally, treatment can become astronomically expensive, which exhausts their funds.

With that being said the last thing Archer wanted was for more money to be spent on something that he believes should be accessible to all who need it, because as he says, “it’s not just the app,” that has to be paid for, “it’s also the tablet and all that comes with it.”. And with this in mind Archer began coding and developing an app with it being free of charge at the center of the concept.

The result was Freespeech, an assistive communicative application that allows people to communicate through pressing visual buttons.

Through this app Della and many others around the world can press a button with a word and corresponding image to sound the word, while also stringing different tiles and words together to create a sentence. With this app as a supplement to the other ways of communication these individuals have, it can provide a way for these children and young adults to get specific about their meaning.

Story adapted from https://www.bbc.com/news/av/disability-57515272 and https://www.optimistdaily.com/2021/07/16-year-old-codes-speech-app-to-he...
Learn more about this story and the app here http://freespeechaac.com/

DISCLAIMER: This story was written by someone who is not the author of the solution, therefore please be advised that, although it was written with the utmost respect for the innovation and the innovator, there can be some incorrect statements. If you find any errors please contact the patient Innovation team via info@patient-innovation.com or at carolina.piedade@patient-innovation.com directly.