For many families in Africa, discovering that a child has a speech or communication delay comes with confusion, fear, and very little guidance. For Sarah Andino, that reality became personal and it sparked a mission.
Sarah is the co-founder and CEO of TalkTu, a Nigerian-based tech platform supporting children with speech and communication needs. In a conversation with Just4WomenAfrica, she shares the personal story that led her into one of Africa’s most overlooked spaces: early intervention and special education.
A Personal Wake-Up Call
Sarah’s journey began with her nephew. He is autistic, non-verbal, and now 16 years old. Around three years ago, after spending over five years in school, Sarah’s sister received an unexpected message: the school said he needed speech therapy and she would have to pay for it.
What shocked Sarah wasn’t just the cost. It was the delay.
“This intervention could have started much earlier,” she explains. “But there just wasn’t enough information to help my sister know what to do, when to do it, or who to speak to.”
As she began paying closer attention, Sarah realised her family’s experience wasn’t unique. Many parents around her had children who were autistic, non-verbal, or experiencing speech delays and most had no idea where to begin.
In a country like Nigeria, she observed, having a child with special needs often meant being silently written off. That realisation became the foundation of TalkTu.
Why Speech Therapy Remains Out of Reach
One of the biggest challenges facing families globally and especially in Africa is the shortage of speech therapists.
In Nigeria, Sarah notes, there is only one institution she knows of that offers speech therapy as a course, graduating fewer than ten students a year. As a result, the country has an estimated 200 board-certified speech therapists nowhere near enough for the millions of children who need support.
Speech and communication challenges are not limited to children with special needs. Sarah explains that one in every ten children experiences some form of speech-related difficulty.
“The demand is very high,” she says, “but awareness, training opportunities, and institutional support are very low.”
Until speech and language pathology becomes more visible and better understood, the gap will continue to widen.
What Parents Are Really Struggling With
According to Sarah, the biggest barrier parents face is lack of information.
Many simply don’t know:
- What signs to look out for
- When to seek help
- How to support their child at home
Time is another challenge. Parents are busy, exhausted, and often overwhelmed. That’s why TalkTu focuses not just on children, but also on empowering parents.
Through one-on-one guidance, parents learn:
- How to ask open-ended questions
- How to encourage communication through everyday conversations
- How to mirror actions and narrate daily activities
- How to respond, even when a child doesn’t speak back
“There is no one-size-fits-all approach,” Sarah emphasises. “Every child is different.”
Some children understand everything but struggle to express themselves. Others have difficulty with comprehension. TalkTu adapts recommendations based on each child’s unique needs.
Building a Tech Platform in a Sensitive Space
Unlike fintech or e-commerce, building a health- and education-focused platform comes with unique challenges.
Initially, TalkTu was designed as a parent-led support platform, to limit excessive screen time for children. But feedback quickly showed that many parents struggled to consistently follow through.
This forced Sarah and her team to rethink the product adapting it so children could still benefit even when parental involvement was limited.
Funding has also been a hurdle. TalkTu operates in a niche market, which makes traditional investment harder to access. The platform has largely been bootstrapped, while handling high engineering costs, in-house content creation, and resource-intensive development.
Still, progress has been encouraging.
Measuring Progress, One Sound at a Time
Success on TalkTu is not measured in dramatic leaps, but in small, meaningful milestones.
The platform tracks:
- Engagement frequency
- New sounds and words formed
- Improvement in articulation
- Sentence construction
- Comprehension and instruction-following
Sarah shares an example of a child who was completely non-verbal. Two weeks into using TalkTu, the child began producing consonant sounds like P, B, and T.
“For us, that’s huge progress,” she says.
Parents receive regular updates showing how their child is progressing from their baseline week by week, month by month.
Advice for Parents: Don’t Wait
Sarah’s advice to parents is clear and firm: act early.
If you suspect a delay, speak to a specialist. Sometimes there may be no cause for concern. Other times, further tests such as hearing assessments may be needed.
“If a child is not babbling by 12 months, not attempting basic words by 18 months, or completely mute by two years, it’s important to seek help.”
Early intervention, she stresses, can make an enormous difference even if a child does not begin speaking until much later.
A Bigger Vision for Africa
While TalkTu currently focuses on speech, Sarah’s long-term vision is far broader.
She wants TalkTu to become Africa’s leading early education platform for neurodivergent children — supporting literacy, numeracy, and foundational learning skills.
Growing up, she remembers the children in many communities who were hidden away indoors because they were “different.”
“Our goal is to make sure that neurodivergent children are not written off,” she says. “They deserve access to learning, friendship, and opportunity.”
Through TalkTu, Sarah Andino is not just building a product she is challenging how African societies see, support, and value children with special needs. And in doing so, she is helping ensure that no child is left without a voice.
