Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SMARTSLT (Smart speech and language tools for children's development.)
Período documentado: 2019-10-01 hasta 2020-03-31
The way children's speech and language development is managed has not radically changed in decades, despite the increases in demand from parents and advances in technology. Parents worry about all aspects of their child's development, and speech and language is particularly difficult for parents to assess and understand if their child is on track for their age. Parents ask primary care providers, creche professionals and teachers but these professionals have reported that they don't have the training or time to adequately help parents and so parents are overloading the speech and language therapy clinical systems. The current system is heavily reliant on face to face approach and this is leading to long waiting lists in the public sector and high costs in the private sector. Many families are forced to spend money they don't have on private therapy because they cannot get the support they need on public systems.
There are no tools for parents to understand if their child's speech is on track for their age or clinically validated remote tools that allow parents to intervene in the early stages of speech development. Early identification and intervention are universally agreed to be the critical factor in addressing many childhood developmental delays. When speech and language delays are missed in early ages, it can takes 2-4 times as long for issues to be addressed when they are identified at age 7 compared to addressing them at age 4.
Kids Speech Labs is developing the first automated, clinically validated, digital health platform for children’s speech and language skills. Our goal is to move the early stages of monitoring and assessing this critical developmental phase into the home to improve early identification and intervention for speech and language delays. By empowering parents with reliable solutions we can reduce the number of families entering the clinical system and support those families who need long term intervention.
There are no tools for parents to understand if their child's speech is on track for their age or clinically validated remote tools that allow parents to intervene in the early stages of speech development. Early identification and intervention are universally agreed to be the critical factor in addressing many childhood developmental delays. When speech and language delays are missed in early ages, it can takes 2-4 times as long for issues to be addressed when they are identified at age 7 compared to addressing them at age 4.
Kids Speech Labs is developing the first automated, clinically validated, digital health platform for children’s speech and language skills. Our goal is to move the early stages of monitoring and assessing this critical developmental phase into the home to improve early identification and intervention for speech and language delays. By empowering parents with reliable solutions we can reduce the number of families entering the clinical system and support those families who need long term intervention.
The feasibility grant was awarded to enable us to develop and release a working prototype of an automated pronunciation scoring app, test it with real users and test the market fit for such an application. We needed to incorporate our unique scoring algorithm into an engaging voice-enabled game that was intuitive for young children to use. The game, Speech Scout, was released through a closed mailing list from a parenting website, Everymum.ie along with a survey of parents needs. The goal of this was to test the usability of the game in an un-supervised capacity and assess a parenting website as a route to market. This experiment had varying degrees of success; the engagement through the mailing list was lower than expected. However over 50% of respondents said they would pay €40 to know if their child needed to see a speech therapist, despite only 27% indicating they have a specific speech development concern. We have generated a new targeted data set for improved algorithm development as well as valuable User Interface (UX) insights for future development. We are currently redeveloping the scoring algorithm from improved performance based on this data set.
The second part of this project was to understand the commercial feasibility for B-B applications. We had several engagements with potential B-B clients to identify how our solutions can integrate with their solutions. These discussions are on-going and have been slightly delayed due to the Corona virus pandemic.
The KSL feasibility study has been deemed a success, and we are in the process of raising a seed round of funding to continue development. We have secured 30% of our target and have early commitments for the rest of it from 2 sources. We have expanded the team to include a part-time speech therapy adviser and a chief information officer. The team is working towards a first commercial release of our product by Jan 2021.
The second part of this project was to understand the commercial feasibility for B-B applications. We had several engagements with potential B-B clients to identify how our solutions can integrate with their solutions. These discussions are on-going and have been slightly delayed due to the Corona virus pandemic.
The KSL feasibility study has been deemed a success, and we are in the process of raising a seed round of funding to continue development. We have secured 30% of our target and have early commitments for the rest of it from 2 sources. We have expanded the team to include a part-time speech therapy adviser and a chief information officer. The team is working towards a first commercial release of our product by Jan 2021.
Kids Speech Labs is the first company to develop technology that enables accurate remote assessment of children's speech skills. We are using our understanding of technology to provide parents with tools they can use to make informed decisions about their child's developmental needs. We are using data to develop new models of what speech and language development looks like. Our assessment capabilities are the first in the industry and we are the only team working to use data and technology to support all stake holders in this industry.
Effective communication skills is one of the most important predictors of success in later life. The general population prevalence of communications problems in 5 year olds is between 10-25% however this is reported as over 50% for children in deprived areas. This is due to lack of education on the early warning signs and/or difficulty accessing public services. We are building the first remote, automated, clinically validated articulation assessment for children. The goal is to allow parents to understand if their child's speech skills are in line with clinical norms or whether they need to attend speech therapy. Delivering a low cost, remote, easily administered assessment to disadvantaged communities will increase the opportunities for early identification and intervention which are critical for addressing problems in speech and language development.
Integration of our solutions into healthcare systems will improve screening and resource allocation with the view that all children will receive the treatment they need as efficiently as possible.
Effective communication skills is one of the most important predictors of success in later life. The general population prevalence of communications problems in 5 year olds is between 10-25% however this is reported as over 50% for children in deprived areas. This is due to lack of education on the early warning signs and/or difficulty accessing public services. We are building the first remote, automated, clinically validated articulation assessment for children. The goal is to allow parents to understand if their child's speech skills are in line with clinical norms or whether they need to attend speech therapy. Delivering a low cost, remote, easily administered assessment to disadvantaged communities will increase the opportunities for early identification and intervention which are critical for addressing problems in speech and language development.
Integration of our solutions into healthcare systems will improve screening and resource allocation with the view that all children will receive the treatment they need as efficiently as possible.