BaDaBum – Development of Speech and Language Skills in Children through Online Games

There are rare areas where Croatia does not lag behind the European average. Unfortunately, the field of speech therapy, or the development of children’s speech and language skills, is no exception. According to research and data from the Croatian Speech Therapy Society, nearly one-third of children require support in their development, and there is only one speech therapist for every seven thousand children, placing Croatia almost twice below the European average. Additionally, speech therapy services are centralized and inaccessible to citizens from rural areas, with some counties completely unserved, and due to long waiting lists, a child in need of help often loses the chance for quality and effective therapy.

These reasons, among others, prompted experts from the ABC Speech Rehabilitation Center, led by Martina Starčević Perica, to launch a digital platform aimed at preschool children, parents, and speech therapists. This commendable idea was realized in collaboration with the communication agency 404 and its web development agency Shape, creating the first Croatian digital platform for the development of children’s speech and language skills – BaDaBum.

Self-Assessment of Skills

As explained by Nikola Vrdoljak, a partner at agency 404, their desire is for the BaDaBum platform to help as many children as possible in different geographical locations and to provide speech therapists and parents with a tool that enables timely development of speech and language skills and abilities. The platform currently features 40 worksheets and 35 online games designed to facilitate children’s development in areas such as pronunciation, graphomotor skills, pre-mathematical skills, attention, visual perception, language in everyday life, early literacy skills, memory, and vocabulary. The games, designed by speech therapists with years of experience working with children, are an excellent educational and developmental tool for parents, and they are appealing to children because they are visually attractive, motivating, and fun.

– The platform allows parents to conduct an online self-assessment of their child’s skills, enabling them to quickly and easily discover if their child has difficulties in certain developmental areas. This is not a diagnostic tool, but it can indicate to parents if there is a need for speech therapy or if it is sufficient to continue working on skill and knowledge development – Vrdoljak explained.

Professional Assistance

All registered users can also receive online speech therapy consultations through the platform. Via video calls, speech therapists answer parents’ questions related to speech and language development and provide guidance on how to encourage the development of communication, language, and speech in children through play and everyday activities. It is also possible to arrange for a live speech therapy diagnostic examination of the child.

– With these features, we enable parents to reach a speech therapist in just a few clicks, seek advice, assistance, and answers to their pressing questions. For this service, we intend to collaborate with all interested speech therapists, and we invite them to reach out because our goal is for BaDaBum to become a tool that helps them – Vrdoljak stated.

BaDaBum is currently intended for children aged 4 to 7 years, regardless of whether they have difficulties or are developing normally, but it will have the most impact on children with speech and language difficulties. The skills developed by the platform are essential for preschool children and will serve as excellent preparation for school, while providing parents with clear insight into their child’s skills. In the future, the team from 404, Shape, and ABC plans to create worksheets and games for children aged two to eight years, as well as to develop the platform in other areas of speech and language development. Their ultimate goal is for BaDaBum to become a comprehensive platform that will be a useful and educational tool for children and parents, providing support and complementing speech therapy.

The content of the BaDaBum platform is available to users in several subscription forms: Solo subscription allows for playing exercises and games and tracking the progress of one child, Multi subscription is intended for two to three children, while Maxi allows for use by four to six children.