Questions, answered plainly.

No. TalkAlong is a practice tool and an adjunct to therapy. It delivers the model, structure and volume of repetition between sessions — but your speech pathologist sets the goals and holds the clinical decisions. If you haven't seen a speech pathologist, that's the best first step.

It's designed for older children, teens and adults working on speech and communication — and for the families and clinicians supporting them. Many speech apps are built for young children; TalkAlong is built to be age-appropriate and dignified for everyone else.

No — and we'd rather be upfront about that. TalkAlong is built for people working on a speech or communication difficulty, not as a first-words app for typically developing toddlers. For little ones just learning to talk, the evidence is clear: real back-and-forth with you — talking, playing, reading together — beats any screen. If a young child has a diagnosed difficulty or is starting early intervention, that's a different story: see our For children page, and talk to a speech pathologist first.

Not harshly. By default the app does not auto-score accuracy — speech recognition is unreliable for disordered speech, and feedback on every attempt can actually hinder learning. The person practising and their carer decide how it went; the avatar models and encourages.

Yes — but only to understand them better, never to score them. As they practise, it learns how they say words they already know, waits for a second matching example before trusting it, and lets a carer edit or remove anything. Speech recognition is never used to grade or judge their speech.

A clear, printable page (plus a spreadsheet) of the words a person uses and how they say them. You can export it from TalkAlong and hand it to a new support worker, teacher or speech pathologist, so anyone can understand them from day one. It complements — it doesn't replace — any communication passport your speech pathologist already uses.

Possibly. As a low-cost communication tool that supports independent-communication goals, it may be claimable as low-cost assistive technology — but it depends on your individual plan and how it's managed. Always confirm with your plan manager, support coordinator or speech pathologist first.

A natural Australian voice. Most off-the-shelf speech apps use a US accent; TalkAlong lets you practise toward how you actually want to sound.

Yes. Each participant has their own private instance, and practice information is kept for the people supporting that person — not shared or sold. We treat speech practice as the sensitive personal information it is.

Yes, and we tell you exactly how. The helper is a clearly signposted AI avatar; a person — the carer and speech pathologist — always makes the decisions, never the AI. A fixed safety charter is attached to every AI request (warm, age-appropriate, no clinical advice, no invented facts), no audio or video is ever stored, and we are guided by AS ISO/IEC 42001:2023 and Australia's AI safety guardrails (guided by — we don't claim certification). See our Responsible AI page for the full picture.

We're setting final pricing with our first members to keep it genuinely affordable and, where possible, within a low-cost AT budget. Join early access to lock in founding-member pricing.

We're opening early access gradually to families, adults and clinicians. Join the list and we'll be in touch as places open.