Audiolex

Speech & language development is vital to overall child development. Early literacy & language skills allow children to successfully absorb vital information in primary school. Unfortunately, many parents do not have the resources or opportunity to even assess their child's communication skills, much less treat potential communication disorders. 

Consequentially, Audiolex is proposing the Lexicon interactive platform. Lexicon is an Alexa based application housed on smart speakers that monitors a child's communication or directly engages in conversation with a child to illicit the necessary responses for a speech & language analysis. With Lexicon, parents have quantifiable data that allows them to track and monitor their child's communication development from the comfort of their own home. 

Lexicon can be scaled to other languages as well as generate custom conversations based on the initial communication assessment. These custom conversations will target problematic areas of communication and aid the child in their overall development. 

In the U.S alone, it is estimated that nearly 8% (5.9 million) of children aged from 3-17 have some form of communication disorder. Yet, there are only 146,000 certified speech-language-pathologists (SLPs) and 50% of them are employed in schools. If it is assumed that every child receives the treatment they need, each SLP in a school setting is left with a case-load of roughly 80 patients. Unfortunately, treating 80 patients simultaneously is not physically feasible. This means that a substaintial portion of children are not receiving the treatment they need to develop their communication skills. Consequentially, these children fall behind in their overall development due to the significance of communication skills on early child development. 

In addition, not only is there a lack of SLP's in school settings, but many parents do not have the resources to seek alternative help from SLP's employed in private clinics or even perform a basic evaluation prior to their child starting primary school. 

The Lexicon platform improves early communication development of children through providing parents, teachers, and speech-language-pathologists with a speech & language analysis. This analysis includes an assessment of articulation (pronunciation) and a language assessment through a vocabulary and sentiment analysis. 

This analysis provides parents with quantifiable data on their child's communication development, allowing them to track their development and focus on problematic areas. It's worth noting that the low-cost of smart-speakers and the widespread use of Alexa (over 100 million devices have been sold that have Alexa built-in) is especially useful for lower-income families who can't afford professional treatment or evaluation. 

Audiolex is partnered with multiple speech-language-pathologists in Phoenix, Arizona as well as having several subject-matter-experts in education on its team. Through this network of subject-matter-experts, Audiolex is able to create engaging activities for children that allow Lexicon to capture the necessary speech data. At the same time, Audiolex is able to create realistic guidelines to compare speech data to for accurate assessment of speech and language development. 

The Lexicon platform is an interactive Alexa skill that can be deployed on any smart-speaker utilizing Alexa. Audiolex has plans of expanding this platform to other smart-speakers, however, the current prototype can only be used on devices that utilize Alexa. 

The Lexicon platform monitors children playing simple arithmetic games such as Matterhorn. In addition, the platform may directly engage in a dialogue-based conversation with a target child to evaluate their communication development. 

Upon capturing the needed audio, the Lexicon platform performs a speech and language assessment utilizing machine learning algorithms through the AWS back-end. This assessment is then displayed for the parent to see on a website dashboard using data visualization features for easier readability. This assessment lets parents see if their child is struggling with pronunciation of certain words or language characteristics such as breadth of vocabulary. 

Furthermore, the Lexicon platform has progress tracking features, this allows parents to see how their child's communication is evolving over time through several assessments. Utilizing this feature, parents can engage in various activities and pinpoint which ones improve their child's communication the most. 

Beyond these features, Audiolex plans on providing a treatment capabilities as well through generative conversations. Through a generative machine learning model, the Lexicon platform will spawn custom conversations based on its initial assessment of the target child. These custom conversations will focus on specific areas of communication that the child is struggling with while remaining engaging and interactive, simultaneously entertaining the child and improving their communication. 

Lexicon is an innovative platform which minimizes the detriment a kid faces with speech and language disabilities. The current status quo of speech language therapy and augmentative communication programs requires a massive investment of time and money for parents concerned about their child's development. Lexicon provides parents (eventually teachers & speech language pathologists) with the ability to visualize where a child places relative to developmental guidelines & how they’re progressing after utilizing resources generated specifically for them. 

At the moment, there are no other platforms which provide a strictly dialog/conversation based learning.

Audiolex is using the following technology: 

1. Inverse reinforcement learning/maximum entropy algorithms to generate relevant content for children with communication disabilities.  
2. Natural language processing & Bayesian inferencing to understand the content & context of a child's thoughts
3. Relational databases to track child progress over time
4. Amazon's Alexa enabled devices to provide an interaction based solely on conversation. 

Majority (70%) of parents do not do general (including communication) developmental screenings. Furthermore, of the parents that screen their children, 10% of children fall outside of clinical guidelines - making them unable to receive insurance coverage for treating their communication issues. With that in mind, a significant amount of parents find paying for out-of-pocket treatment for their children to be too expensive. 

Our Lexicon platform offers families with children unable to attain insurance coverage or pay for treatment an affordable alternative.  

Full-time staff: 

Ilya Skolkov (Co-founder | Business Development ) 

Fazil Khan (Co-founder | Software Development)

Patrick Kennedy (Co-founder | Marketing) 

Part-time staff: 

Jamie Kamantigue (Front-end development)

Advisors: 

Dr. Joseph Barimo

Barbara Kennedy 

I've personally been struggling with a stutter my whole life, I have ample experience dealing with communication disorders and receiving therapy and treatment. This gives me a unique insight into the psychology behind communication disorders as well as the treatment process. In addition, I have a M.S in Business Analytics and over two years of combined experienced in high-tech product development and wealth management. My education and professional experience gives me the skills and motivation I need to lead the overall business development of Audiolex as well as executing a successful and sustainable financial strategy to ensure long-term success. 

Fazil Khan is an expert in machine learning and implementation. He has the expertise and knowledge needed for creating and executing the back-end infrastructure of the Lexicon platform.

Patrick Kennedy has a background in Mechanical Engineering with expertise in developing embedded systems and high-tech products as well as technical marketing. His formal education and professional experience makes him the perfect fit for aiding in development as well as marketing efforts.  

Under the guidance of Barbara Kennedy and Dr. Joseph Barimo, we have the necessary subject-matter-experts to ensure our product has the essential features to help and engage with children struggling from communication disorders. 

We are currently partnered with Piller Child Development, a private speech-language-pathology clinic spanning across three locations in Phoenix, Arizona. 

We have a closer partnership with the head speech-language-pathologist and manager, Dr. Joseph Barimo. Dr. Joseph Barimo has played a crucial role in providing Audiolex with the expertise needed for accurate assessment of communication and integrating this into the machine learning algorithms. 

In addition, Audiolex will be piloting the first prototype of the Lexicon platform in the Piller Child Development clinics. 

The Lexicon platform will be provided to three target segments. These three target segments are described in greater detail. 

Parents - Business to consumer model. 

Speech-language-pathologists - Business to business model. 

Teachers - Business to business model 

Audiolex is looking to raise investment capital to ensure successful product development and commercialization. Upon commercialization, Audiolex is planning on using the revenue generated from the three target segments described above to ensuring financial sustainability. 

Funding & partnership opportunities. 

N/A

Boston Childrens Hospital 

• Augmentative Communication Program
• John Costello, MA, CCC-SLP

Harvard 

• Medical School 
• Vroom nonprofit 

MIT 

• innovation lab

Boston Childrens Hospital 

• Augmentative Communication Program
• John Costello, MA, CCC-SLP

Harvard 

• Medical School 
• Vroom -

Generative algorithms.