The Founder's Story - Beginning | Voice4u - AAC App for Autism, Stroke Victims, ALS on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android

Mother of Two Children

My name is Yumi Kubo and I am the mother of two children. I have a daughter who is eighteen years old, and a son, Wataru, who is fifteen years old. My first delivery was difficult, but we had a healthy baby. Shortly after my son’s birth, I started encounting many problems.

I thought I was raising him just the same as any parent would raise her child, but something was different. A month after he was born, we discovered his physical challenges.

When he was five months old, he suddenly stopped drinking baby formula. Thinking something was wrong, I rushed him to the doctor, where I was told that he had “serious allergies”. Not only was he allergic to milk, but also beans, flour, and eggs. I wondered how I was supposed to nurture a child that was allergic to such ingredients common in almost all foods.

I remember the days that I stood in the supermarket reading the ingredients label for every product that I picked up. Because I was not very good at English, I would stand there with a package in my hand as I tried desperately to read the label. My hand would become so cold to the point that it was numb each time I picked up a package of frozen food.

On top of all of his food allergies, Wataru was allergic to dust as well. Whenever he would have an allergic reaction I would have to wash everything from clothes, sheets, pillow cases and even curtains. The laundromat became like my workplace. I remember being troubled about not being able to get any reactions out of him even when I cradled him or called his name. At first I thought it was because of his allergies, but then began to think that he had autism.

Diagnosis

When Wataru was a year old, I took him to the Hewlett Packard Children’s Hospital (Palo Alto, California). Knocking on the door of the children’s hospital, I was unaware that the second chapter of my life had begun…

Wataru was diagnosed with autism at the age of one.

I was told that,

“If his autism could be found this quickly, the possibilities of him even being able to speak are close to zero.”

Upon hearing this, I took it as,

“You will never be able to have a conversation with this child and never have a form of communication with him forever.”

And I felt as though I was pushed off of a cliff. During that time, I cared for my son, hoping that he would say at least one word. During the time, I heard that autistic children had a much easier time communicating through pictures rather than words, so I carried around a binder full of icons, which grew to 20 pounds.

Also, I always carried around all of the clothes, toys, food, and books my son would want. This made it impossible to physically comfort him when he got into a panic in a public place, and even more impossible to even hold his hand. My hands were always filled with all of the things he needed. But, Wataru’s icon binder was always in the way and I could never hug him because of it. But now, with the icons in my iPhone, I am able to help him anywhere at anytime.

Here is a news article about Wataru & Yumi’s family published in 2002.
Family finds hope in Silicon Valley, By Marian Liu, San Jose Mercury News

Communication Device, Insurance, Attorney, SLP

I bought a conventional communication device with medical insurance. But, it took the device half a year to get to me after applying for insurance. During that time, the therapists’ fees was more than $1,000, and I needed another $1,000 to get an attorney to negotiate with the insurance company. When I finally got the device, my son’s teachers and therapists told me that the device was not fit for him and he would never use it.

picture cards

Since the device was bulky and almost impossible to carry around with everything else my son needs, I decided to purchase a new application on the iPhone. This cost much less than the conventional communication device. This application had too many different functions and was complicated to use for my son, so he didn’t want to use it. His speech therapist who had 25 years of experience couldn’t use it, and her engineer who has a Ph.D. from Stanford wasn’t able to use it either.

This motivated me to create the Voice4u application.

Creating Voice4u

Voice4u on iPhone
At first, I was thinking of doing this Voice4u project as a weekend job. But the more I talked about this app, the more people got excited and involved. I decided to incorporate this business with people from a variety fields; entrepreneurs and an expert in software engineering with Ph.D. from Stanford University.

The engineer has tutored my son for about 3 years while he was studying at Stanford. When he finished his Ph.D. in 2009, he had several opportunities to work in aerospace research and industry (plus gigantic software companies), but he decided to dedicate himself to supporting autism through technology. According to him, “I spent a quarter of my life to study just for my interest. But now, I want to help people by applying what I’ve gained through education. There are a number of people who immediately need supports and technical solutions. I should solve problems on Earth first (then think about the universe =) )”

So, this is how Voice4u was created. We continue to work to improve product and support as many people as possible. Presently, we have as customers autistic children across a wide variety of ages, and all of them have learned to use the product in less than a few minutes. The Voice4u app has also proved valuable for people who have suffered strokes or other speech disabling events. Anyone can use it, and it is possible to add up to a 1,000 new icons and sentences. I personally believe that economic and emotional burdens for families with autistic or physically disabled members should be lessened. I hope this app will help.

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