TippyTalk app release is set for July

TippyTalk app release is set to be released soon.
Pictured above is TippyTalk creator, Rob Laffan with Richard Lynch.
Picture by  Jonathan Baynes/ilovelimerick.

Rob Laffan’s TippyTalk, the app designed to help people living with a verbal disability communicate their feelings, wants and needs, is ready for its upcoming launch this week.

TippyTalk was created by Mr Laffan while studying engineering at the Limerick Institute of Technology as a way to help his daughter, Sadie who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The app has been in development since November 2014 and provides a communication solution for people living with a verbal disability.

At the moment TippyTalk is being tested with professionals and families across the globe. The app is ready for its release and will be available on Google Play at the end of this week for Android. The Apple version of the TippyTalk app release is aimed for the end of July and can be purchased through the App Store.

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The TippyTalk app can be installed on a tablet PC or iPad and can allow the user to communicate through pictures set up to meet the TippyTalker’s needs. By selecting images the user can communicate with others through text messaging and visual communication.

“TippyTalk is unique in that it removes the person with the verbal disability from the isolation of same room communication. It also allows the parent or caregiver to capture images that are uniquely familiar to the person using the communication app. No two TippyTalkers will be the same, each unit is extremely user-friendly and simple to program,” reads the TippyTalk website.

The use of text messaging allows the TippyTalker to communicate with their parent, siblings or users programmed in the app removing distance and other physical impairments as an obstacle. This allows the TippyTalk user to communicate freely and interact with others like they haven’t had the opportunity to do previously.

TippyTalk creator Rob Laffan, whose daughter, Sadie, lives with non-verbal autism, describes how after just two days of using the app he received a message from Sadie.

Mr Laffan and his wife were discussing what to have for dinner one evening and opted for takeaway, “No sooner did I arrive at the chipper and I received a text message ‘Hi dad, can I have chicken nuggets.”

Robert phoned his wife asking who sent the message, she explained it must have been their Sadie as they were the only two at the house.

“This was the equivalent of hearing my child’s first words and I didn’t even have to be in the room to experience it,” Rob said.

The TippyTalk app release date is set for this week for Android and the Apple version coming at the end of July.

For more information on TippyTalk you can visit the website here.
Click here to read more stories related to autism awareness.