Teen’s Thoughtful Invention Helps Families Better Understand Autistic Children
For Shashank Madala, a meaningful idea began close to home: he wanted the adults in his family to better understand his younger autistic cousin.
That wish grew into Kora, a free app now reaching more than 700 users across 12 countries. Through connections with autism therapy centers, the New Jersey high school student’s project is helping families explore what children may be communicating—and encouraging caregivers to approach those moments with patience and curiosity.
Madala first noticed the need during family gatherings. When his cousin became upset, caring adults would try to explain why. Was he hungry? Was the room too noisy? Their guesses often missed the mark, Madala wrote, and his cousin eventually stopped trying to tell them.
At 15, with only one computer science class behind him, Madala decided to learn machine learning and build something that might help.
His earliest attempts offered a single, confident interpretation of a child’s emotions. But he soon recognized a familiar problem: giving adults a definitive answer could reinforce the same assumptions he had hoped to prevent.
So he changed direction. Rather than telling caregivers what a child was feeling, Kora would offer several possibilities and make its uncertainty clear.
“A tool that announces that a child is angry invites the adult to stop looking at the child,” he wrote in Autism Spectrum News in August.
That insight became central to the app. Instead of asking autistic children to change, Madala wanted to help the people around them become more attentive and understanding.
Using a phone camera, caregivers can receive possible interpretations across emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and neutrality, alongside suggestions for responding. Kora does not offer diagnoses or judgments, and it flags uncertainty rather than presenting every interpretation as fact. The adult who knows the child remains responsible for deciding how to respond.
The project has also earned recognition beyond the families it serves. In December 2025, Kora took first place in the Congressional App Challenge for New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District. It was displayed in the U.S. Capitol, and a 2026 Joint Legislative Resolution from the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly honored Madala’s achievement.
Now working with three colleagues, Madala continues to develop Kora and hopes to introduce it to more therapy centers, schools, and families while keeping it free.
At the heart of that ambition is the same simple act that started everything: paying attention to someone he loved.
“The most useful thing I have ever built came out of paying close attention to one person,” he said. “If you are looking for something that matters, it is probably already in your house.”
