Lastochkin had no training in software development. He built the app around one learner: Timoteo. It follows the boy's own pace in taking in new material. The aim was to make learning a language less frustrating and easier for him to manage.
The reports do not give the app's name or Timoteo's age. They also do not say which city the family left or when they arrived in Italy. They focus on what the father made and why he made it.
The story reached a national audience on Rai 3's programme O anche no, presented by Paola Severini Melograni. TGR Bolzano, Rai's regional news service, also covered it. The Rai 3 segment described a personal need that became a teaching tool. It suggested the app could help other neurodivergent children settle into a new country.
Bolzano is a hard place to arrive in with a new language to learn. Under South Tyrol's autonomy arrangements, the province runs separate German-language, Italian-language and Ladin-language school systems. The system a child joins sets the main language of teaching. Pupils must also learn the other main local language, so a new arrival may have to learn two languages at once.
Italy puts pupils with disabilities in ordinary classrooms. It began phasing out separate special classes in 1977, and a 1992 law provides support teachers for individual pupils. Ukrainian refugees hold EU temporary protection, which gives them access to Italian schools. Even with these rules, the work of adapting lessons to one child often falls to a parent.
Other people in the city are working on the same problem. Youmind, a psychopedagogical centre in Bolzano, supports children with autism, learning disorders and ADHD. It is preparing a multisensory classroom where pupils with special educational needs can calm down and relax.
Lastochkin started with one boy who was struggling with Italian. What he built may now help other children who need to learn at their own pace.