Spubbling up help for autistic children

Inspired by the non-verbal, autistic children he worked with as a Kulanu volunteer, Jacob Steinerman, a 2008 Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway graduate invented an application for iPhones called, “Spubble” that helps children with autism communicate.

As a junior majoring in Informatics with a focus in Social Computing at the University of Michigan, the Woodmere native founded MoBlue, a technology firm that develops applications for mobile computing devices.

The non-verbal children Steinerman worked with at Kulanu in Cedarhurst carried large, heavy and expensive augmentative devices around with them to communicate. “Seeing kids having to lug around big boxes to communicate was ineffective,” he said. “I brought together the experiences I have to come up with a modern solution to that problem.”

Alyssa Sterba, a Woodmere resident, said her 17-year-old son, Garrick, is autistic and prior to downloading the Spubble, he carried around a communication device called the Chat PC which is bigger than an iPod but smaller than an iPad. “The Chat PC is bigger and bulkier and when he wore it around his neck it made him look different than a typical teenager,” Sterba said. “He can use the Spubble on his iPod touch and look like his contemporaries who are busy with music and games.”

Parents of autistic children can download the application free of charge to their iPhone. It works by having the user tap the phone screen and arrange the “bubbles” or icons that contain illustrations in five categories, such as food, people, and places.

By arranging the “bubbles” and tapping the icon allows the phone to “speak” or pronounce the message chosen by the user. Steinerman said the name, “Spubble,” came from combining the words “speech” and “bubble.”

“The ‘app’ can be used both as a communication and learning tool,” Steinerman said. “It can also help children with grammar and sentence formation.”

In December, Steinerman contacted Kulanu for a collaboration in which the ‘app’ was downloaded and tested by children within the organization.

The Director of Inclusion and Support Services at Kulanu, Jonathan Cooper, said he’s known Steinerman since he began volunteering for the organization at 9-years-old. “Jacob worked with kids who were non-verbal and he had an intuitive sense that if they could communicate they would calm down and have their needs met,” he said. Cooper said he is very excited about the program and is always amazed when a person volunteers at an institution and it sets them off on a career path. “This ‘app’ will allow the kids to communicate with anyone they’re around,” he said. “It’s one less barrier between people with special needs and the general population.”

Sterba said she downloaded Spubble for Garrick on April 7. “It’s new so he has to be shown how to work it,” she said. “The application is in the early stages but it has the potential to be a great for him once he learns it better and the application grows. I’m very impressed with Jacob because whether he was inspired by Garrick or other children (at Kulanu) he took that to college and made it work which is amazing.”

Improving the “Spubble” is Steinerman’s goal for his summer and senior year at college. “I hope to continue it at least through next year, depending on feedback,” he said. “I’m very passionate about using social media and modern technology to benefit the special needs population.”