KOKO the Talking Koala is a voice-activated e-storybook co-designed with parents and speech pathologists to prompt young children with speech difficulties to speak. Speech difficulties is a major issue to many young children in Australia and world wide, and the long waitlist of speech therapy might risk the delay children to fall behind academically.
There are 140,000 children in Australia who have sensory/speech disabilities. Early intervention is important for these children to avoid falling behind academically. The problem, however, long waitlist for speech therapy can get up to 12-18months. This means children risk missing their golden age for speech learning at the age of 18-months to 3-year-old.
We did iterative co-design sessions with parents with lived-experience and speech pathologists. KOKO the Talking Koala is co-designed as a voice-activated e-storybook to prompt young children to speak using their voice instead of tapping or swiping.
There is no waitlist to access KOKO and it can be played anywhere, 30 minutes session a day under parents supervision. We are keeping the human interaction between parents and children. We incorporate repetition, rhythm and the concept of fill in the blanks in the storyline.
KOKO will be accessible by three different stakeholders.
(1) Parents as the buyers, get the efficiency of the app, flexibility of time, ease of use, credibility of the app knowing it is advised by speech pathologists, and affordable.
(2) Children as the end-users will get their speech improved through learning by playing.
(3) Speech Pathologists as the experts will get a tech-based solution with the ability to track progress and map programs within the app.
Through KOKO, we connect parents, children and speech pathologists together in one ecosystem that guides them through tailored speech therapy.
We are currently seeking Investors and Software Developers, if you are one or know someone who are interested, get in touch with us! Together let's put a stop to the long waitlist of speech therapy and making it accessible by anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
Thank you!