E.A.S.E. launches new communication for non-speakers ‘Kathakaramu’

A new mobile application was launched this week to facilitate communication access to non-speakers in Sri Lanka.

The application titled ‘Kathakaramu’ is an initiative of the E.A.S.E. Foundation co-founded in 2007 by Chandima Rajapatirana, a person with non-speaking autism and his family. It was officially launched at an event held at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute on 22 January in an engaging and interactive event from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Sharing the story of the application, Chandima’s mother Anoma Rajapatirana who is also the co-founder of E.A.S.E. said it was based on a simple Sinhalese language board created by her fitting almost the entire Sinhala alphabet. The foundation used this to teach non-speaking students to communicate.

The innovative application was developed by Yaala labs. Addressing those gathered, Yaala Labs Senior Technical Lead Dhananjaya Rajasinghe said they were motivated to create the application after witnessing the struggles the children attending the E.A.S.E. centre faced in learning to communicate. Rajasinghe demonstrated the functions of the mobile application to attendees while they were also invited to download the application and experience it through an interactive session with others.

“We used to teach the children to communicate using a basic tablet and impart knowledge on various subjects to them through this method. One student loves to start her day by having a conversation with us. Now she does it through the application. This shows that non-communicative children should not be put aside and instead must be given opportunities such as this. If not, their talents will be hidden from this world,” a teacher at E.A.S.E. Nirasha said.

The mobile application will be available free of charge. Originally created for the non-speaking students of the E.A.S.E. Foundation it has now been expanded to help a variety of others, including deaf/mute persons who use sign language to communicate.

“Non-speaking persons are often considered incapable of learning languages. The students of EA.S.E., using our simple approach to teaching language, have demonstrated repeatedly that this idea is obsolete. Each student represents a story of triumph over daunting challenges. Their language skills have enabled them to become included in their community, including their own families, as thinking, understanding beings,” E.A.S.E. said.