EarlyBird Dyslexia Screener and SoapBox Speech Recognition Technology Paired to Help Predict Reading Problems in Young Pre-Readers
- By Kate Lucariello
- 12/08/22
EarlyBird
Education and SoapBox
Labs have partnered and paired their technology to
identify potential dyslexia or other reading problems in young
children who have not yet learned to read. The technology was
developed at Boston
Children’s Hospital, along with faculty at the
Florida Center
for Reading Research. It is now available for pre-K
and first-grade levels, and will be expanding to second- and
third-grade levels, EarlyBird reports.
Using
a cloud-based platform, the EarlyBird dyslexia screener features a
friendly robot that extends a microphone to invite the child to
speak. SoapBox’s automated speech recognition engine listens to and
identifies the child’s speech patterns, processing various accents
and dialects. The results are scored automatically by an AI and shown
on the dashboard. Assessed are the main predictors of reading skills:
naming speed (Rapid Automated Naming), sound symbol correspondence,
phonemic/phonological awareness, word reading, phonics, and oral
language comprehension. The software provides a customized plan to
help teachers work with students in specific problem areas before
they learn to read.
SoapBox
Labs will hold a webinar Tuesday, December 13, at 11:30 a.m. EST on
how EarlyBird uses voice technology for dyslexia screening. Register
here to attend.
Visit
EarlyBird Education to learn more about how it developed its
assessment technology.
Visit
this SoapBox Labs’ page to understand how child
speech recognition technology is used in language assessment.
About the Author
Kate Lucariello is a former newspaper editor, EAST Lab high school teacher and college English teacher.