Enea Experts TAKK application to support children with language difficulties

Enea Experts TAKK application to support children with language
difficulties

Smartphone app developed together with the Swedish organization Bam
SPRÅKTEKNIK

TAKK (Tecken som Alternativ och Kompletterande Kommunikation, or Signing
as Alternative and Supplementary Communication) is a method used to
support communication with children, young people and adults whose
speech and/or language development is abnormal or delayed. The method
involves signing key words in a discussion while saying them at the same
time.

Bam SPRÅKTEKNIK is publishing a book based on this method, titled
Teckenkommunikation GRUNDORDBOK, or BASIC DICTIONARY of Sign Language.
The book has been approved by many county councils as an aid for
face-to-face communication. This book is mainly sold to parents who have
children with these problems. For the most part, speech therapists
training parents on TAKK methods will be selling the book.

ENEA Experts in Stockholm, Sweden have been working with Bam SPRÅKTEKNIK
to develop a Smartphone app based entirely on the Basic Dictionary. Like
the book, the app contains more than 1500 terms to look up. The app can
display the terms in alphabetical order or by category, and it also has
other basic functions which make it very easy to scroll through the
terms.

“The biggest advantage of the application is that it's a tool which you
can carry anywhere and which helps you to communicate with your children
in everyday situations. Flipping through a book is hard sometimes; if
you're out and about, for example, or when you're on the bus. This is
probably when people will find the app most useful,” says Barbro
Magnusson, authorised speech therapist at Bam SPRÅKTEKNIK, Lund.

Quotations about TAKK from visitors to trade fairs:

• Parent: “On Android at last! Now I can communicate with my son when
we're out and I've forgotten a sign.”
• Rehabilitation speech therapist: “It's great for me, I can open the
app and look things up quickly no matter where I am. I'm looking forward
to telling people on my signing course all about it!”
• Remedial teacher: “I find it really fantastic when I'm out at
preschools and I don't have the book to hand.”
• Teaching assistant: “Brilliant! I'm new here, and I don't know as many
signs as my user knows. We've got a book at the center, but I always
carry my mobile with me.”

The app is available from the Android Market and costs SEK 50. To
download the app, go to the Android Market and search for TAKK. The app
will be available for iPhone soon.

For more information

Celi Ericsson, Section Manager, Software Applications, Enea Experts
Stockholm
Telephone: +46 8 5071 4266
E-mail: celi.ericsson@enea.com (celi.ericsson@enea.com)
Catharina Paulcén, VP Corporate Communications
Phone: +46 8 507 140 00 or email:
catharina.paulcen@enea.com (catharina.paulcen@enea.com)