Disney media and speech therapy combine!

One of the most memorable quotes from finding Nemo was when Dory repeatedly said, just keep swimming, just keep swimming. That’s exactly what Enda and Valerie Dodd did with their twin sons Conor and Eoin who were diagnosed as autistic at an early age.

The medical experts said that the boys probably would have to become institutionalized at some stage in their lives, but Enda and Valerie could not accept this and knew deep down the twins had the ability to do much more than what was expected.

So with help from Disney Pixar and Adobe, the Dodd family created a device to prove those doctors wrong and that they believe could change the world. There was “utter confusion surrounding the diagnosis when it became evident that they were not talking and were diagnosed is highly Autistic”, Valerie said.

Autism spectrum disorder, pervasive development disorder, deafness, language disorder, sensory integration disorder and global dyspraxia were among many terms being used, and we had little understanding of their meaning.

Because of the lack of resources that were available at the time to help the twins, Enda and Valerie decided to relocate. In 2003, they left Galway and headed stateside in the hopes to improve their condition. Their first move was to St. Louis, where Conor and Eoin attended an oral deaf and speech therapy school but then later relocated to California.

Enda was able to continue working as a medical researcher for Medtronic, but Valerie put aside her teaching job to work full-time with the boys. When they noticed their sons were not progressing using traditional methods, Enda quit his job and focused on thinking outside the box in order to help Conor and Eoln’s condition.

Even though the boys stopped improving, Enda and Valerie could see something in the twins that maybe the average person couldn’t. A lot of autistic children are thought to be unintelligent, but that’s not true, Enda said. They knew their children had the ability to communicate, but Enda and Valerie just needed to find a way to help them do that.

We were always looking for a way forward and the boys had the secret. We knew it was in them and that they had the ability, Valerie said. The two used their skills from their previous jobs to create software that would give Conor and Eoin the road map to rise above the obstacles they knew they were capable of overcoming.

We knew children respond well and love Disney. The boys love computers, so we had to find a way to use computers and visual learning and mold it into a teaching aid, Valerie said. In 2009, they collaborated with Disney, Pixar and Adobe e-learning teams. They also brought together world leading specialists and schools to get their boys out of the isolation of autism. It was then they created animated language learning or ALL.

ALL teaches children concepts with audio and visual stimuli and connects the learned concepts to speech and language. The child connects those concepts to language by their visual reasoning and problem-solving skills. If you could just lay a language foundation for children then they can build upon it, Valerie said. The innovative software has helped the twins communicate and accomplish what doctors thought they never had a chance at doing.

Amazingly, Eoin is now going into his leaving cert year at the Presentation Collage in Athenry, and Conor is working full-time software programming with Enda. Conor and Eoin, who are now 19, are actively playing sports creating relationships, working and learning.

The Dodd’s moved back home to Galway in 2015 and they’re now working with NUI Galway business innovation center to make sure this technology is accessible to everyone in need. The software is currently being used by 250 English-speaking families worldwide and Enda believes he will be able to expand this greatly with the help of NUI Galway.

Anyone who is interested in the software or want more information can visit www.animatedlanguagelearning.com