Speech Therapist paying back to the Autism community after 8 years using the iPad

July 9, 2012 - PRLog -- Eight years ago, Barbara Fernandes, a Speech Therapy student at the Universidade Federal da Bahia was one of the four selected students to participate in an exchange student program in Philadelphia, US. The program funded by CAPES, was designed to provide Brazilian students with the opportunity to learn about how the United States has been successfully implementing alternative communication and assistive technology for people with disability so that this can be implemented in Brazil.

Barbara spent a semester studying at Temple University and learning about alternative communication. She had an opportunity to continue studying and graduated from Temple University and pursued her master’s degree in Texas. What was supposed to be a semester abroad turned into 8 years, a master’s degree, and a successful company called Smarty Ears. Barbara has created over 40 applications for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch that has helped thousands of children with autism and other communication disorders around the world. Soon after Barbara finished her master’s degree she founded a company with one goal: to make therapy materials accessible for people around the world. Barbara’s passion for technology and children with communication disorders led her company to have sold applications to over 50 countries around the world.

Recently Barbara decided to bring the same technology and applications to Portuguese in order to provide fun educational applications to children in brazil.
The iPad has changed the way speech-therapists provide services to children and adults with a communication disorder in the United States, mostly thanks to Barbara’s innovative applications. “Every child born in this century is naturally drawn to technology, which makes our jobs much easier by using something that children naturally like to help them learn”. Says Barbara.

Barbara has always envisioned and wanted to pay back the opportunity given to her eight years ago, and now she is doing that by making her creations available in Portuguese. Barbara is not only the creator of revolutionary educational applications, but she is also the creator of a symbol set, that is also now being translated into portuguese.  Smarty Symbols is a set of thousands of pictures used by children and adults with autism or other communication disorders to communicate. Barbara created a set with over 13 thousand symbols that can be used as a form of communication for those who cannot speak.

In the end, Brazil is getting back the knowledge and expertise of a Brazilian who  changed her profession in the United States and certainly will change the lives of many Brazilians in the future.