A new language tool allowing for non verbal children to communicate in the Irish language is to be made freely available online.
The app, Geabaire, which is the Irish word for chatterbox, was developed after the mother of two autistic children, both minimally speaking, contacted researchers in Trinity College, Dublin to ask if a new speech-generating app could be developed for the Irish language.
Since then, Julia Cummins has become involved with the project and is working on a PhD on its development, saying that she had the idea after watching her 14 year old daughter and 10 year old son, use English language versions of the technology.
According to reports in RTÉ, Julia Cummins said: "They were using an app where they could press a symbol, it would represent a word and there would be a speech output, and they were able to combine these words into sentences, so they could get their needs met and express themselves and talk about what they were interested in".
"But there was no equivalent of that for the Irish language, and it was impossible to adapt the English language version because the structure of Irish is so different," she said.
"They're hearing Irish all around them, at home, amongst my husband's Irish-speaking family and in school but they weren't able to express themselves. They weren't able to show what they know.
"They weren't able to integrate with their peers in the language of the community, in the language of their school. So now they can do that, they can show what they know and what they're interested in. It's just really a sense of belonging and community within the Irish language," she added.
"I managed to record the first time that my elder daughter said 'Dia dhuit a Mhamó' to her Mamó and just the absolute delight on her face when I did that was just a really special moment," she added.
Ms Cummin's young son, Conall, attends Gaelscoil Eoin, in Ballsbridge, Dublin, and has used the Geabhaire app, something which has benefitted everyone in the school community, according to their Principal, Cristín Ní Chairealláin.
"Everybody in his class knows all about it. They all like to have a go at using it with him. They talk to him through it", she said. "They are fascinated with it. So not only is it a communication tool for Conall, but it's like a point of communication for everybody. They just love chatting to Conall with it in their own time. They'll wander over and have a little chat, so it's a really inclusive piece of tech, and it's really Conall's voice". (All quotes in this piece according to RTÉ).
It will be available to freely use, using the dialects and structures of the Irish language, and is described as a global model for other minority languages by those behind the new technology.
"What we have now is very much not a translation of an English tool. It's built from the ground up, and we have a lot of learning done along the way. Irish has its own grammar, word order, dialects, and it is crucial that that's brought in", Neasa Ní Chiaráin, Assistant Professor at the School of Linguistics Speech & Communications Sciences in Trinity College Dublin said.
She added: "In an application like this, the voice is crucial and the coverage of the various dialects. The voice you pick is going to depend on where you live, on your family, on the people that surround you. In technology development, we're still a long way from that, and that's where we're still building.
"And there's a lot of work to be done towards building a bank of voices to make sure that people can choose a voice that suits themselves, towards building expressivity into those synthetic voices. We're not there yet, and even the major world languages, the technology isn't really there yet for that. But that's why this is such an interesting problem to be working on".
The developers hope that the app will continue to help children in Irish speaking schools, and help non verbal children in English speaking schools to gain access to the Irish language.
It is available via this link here.
An app based version of this will also be available on the Apple and Android app stores in the next few days.
