Technology can help children with autism and language disorders communicate with the world around them,

Autism Speaks, August 19, 2013

Animated Language Learning, an Ireland-based company, is developing technology that uses Disney and Pixar movies to help educate children with autism and other language learning disorders.

Enda Dodd, founder and CEO of Animated Language Learning, was inspired to create this technology by his two sons affected by autism, Eoin and Conor. Their goal is to improve the lives of people with autism and to help them communicate with the world around them.

Dodd worked with researchers in California to test the technology that remixes Disney and Pixar movies to help children associate visualisations with language.

He explained, “What we do is break the movies into short segments of 40 or 50 seconds with some event or concept. In Toy Story, it could be as simple as Andy playing with his toys or as complex as Woody pushing Buzz out the window and what happens after that. Children understand almost intuitively what has happened.”