Her first words - at 21

For Rosetta Ntshiqa, Facebook and WhatsApp were not simply a way to catch up with friends - they were her lifeline to the outside world.

Ntshiqa, of Khayelitsha, Cape Town, was born with a form of cerebral palsy that limited her movement and speech so severely that only recently - at the age of 21 - was she able to make a speech in public.

She was one of nine young people with communication disabilities chosen by the University of Pretoria to speak on Friday, a feat she accomplished with the aid of a speech synthesiser.

She types on a specially adapted keyboard and the words are vocalised by the synthesiser.

Ntshiqa joined the university's Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication last year.

Founded in September 2005, the centre - the first of its kind in Africa - has given more than 20 young people a voice.

Professor Juan Bornman said the centre aimed to give marginalised people the ability to enter mainstream society.

Said Bornman: "We want them to go back to their communities and become great leaders. They learn to set long-term dreams with the knowledge that they are able to achieve them."

Kwakha Phama, 20, who also has cerebral palsy, said the programme and his computer skills have enabled him to start a small printing business at his home in Mfuleni, Cape Town. Phama uses an iPad with a text- and picture-based application called Proloquo2go to communicate.

"It has changed not only my life but also the living conditions of my family. Our lives have improved because of the business.

"I'm now looking at how I can expand it."

The centre is involved in a joint research project with Temple University, in Philadelphia, in the US, on the use of cellphones and tablet computers by people with little or no ability to speak.