NEW DELHI: Ritu Nakra, a graduate from the National Institute of Fashion Technology became a certified auditory-verbal therapist after her daughter was born with profound hearing loss. In a bid to help parents of children with hearing impairment, she launched ‘Hear Me Speak’ a therapy centre in Delhi that offers multiple services like parent’s forum, discussion with professionals, therapy store and others.
Now, taking it a step further, Nakra has launched an auditory verbal trainer app - ‘Avatar’. “We cater to children between 0-5 years of age and help them learn to speak. We focus on developing learning skills so that the child can attain speech and finally be integrated into mainstream schools,” Nakra told The Morning Standard.
According to Nakra, in India, the teaching methods used for hearing-impaired children need an update so that they can be taught from a young age. “India needs to move towards screening hearing impairment in newborns. If diagnosed at an early age, the treatment procedure becomes quite easy. The auditory brain of the child needs to get stimulated to help develop speech and hearing. When the process of diagnosis is delayed, it becomes difficult to stimulate the brain,” Nakra added.
Talking about the app, she says that it provides a live portal where every month interacting sessions will be conducted. “We have professionals who will educate parents on different subjects. Parents can write to the professionals, ask queries and get answers. The app includes an easy step-by-step habilitation resource for parents to guide and enable young children with hearing loss in order to listen, learn and communicate by understanding and following the stages of speech and language development in their home environment,” Nakra stated.
At a cost of Rs 300 per month, the application is available in both Hindi and English and will soon be available in other regional languages. It is available on both IOS and Android.