**Public Description** Speech, Language, and Communication Needs SLCN affect approximately 10% of children (around 1.9M in the UK). Early intervention is crucial. Children with SLCN are significantly more likely to struggle academically and face unemployment in adulthood. However, NHS Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) services face significant challenges: nearly 75,000 children on waiting lists and average waits exceeding 45 weeks---well beyond the NHS's 18-week target. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated developmental delays and widened health inequalities. We aim to revolutionise the approach to SLCN through SuperPenguin, a digital therapeutic platform. Building on our existing solution that supports children who stammer---adopted by 25 NHS Trusts---we plan to expand SuperPenguin to support a broad range of SLCN, including comorbidities. The project will expand SuperPenguin in two areas: 1. "Waiting Well" SLCN Support Expansion: Providing immediate, evidence-based support to families on waiting lists, enhancing caregiver confidence and engagement. By extending SuperPenguin to most SLCN, we aim to long waiting times and improve early intervention outcomes. 2. Self-Managed Early Diagnostics and Intervention: Developing novel tools using advanced speech detection algorithms to enable caregivers to self-manage diagnosis, triage, and intervention, thereby reducing administrative burdens on SLT services and allowing clinicians to focus on complex cases. Our innovation lies in creating the first "all-inclusive" digital therapeutic, integrating support for multiple SLCN within a single, scalable platform. We utilise advanced AI algorithms for personalisation, ensuring interventions are tailored to individual needs, enhancing engagement and effectiveness. By fitting into existing NHS care models, SuperPenguin encourages adoption by clinicians and facilitates the transformation of standard care pathways without disrupting current practices. Our approach mitigates concerns about AI replacing workers, fostering trust and collaboration with healthcare professionals. The project has significant impacts: * Economic: Potential NHS savings of up to £2M annually per contract by reducing SLT sessions and follow-ups, aligning with NHS priorities to reduce waiting times and improve service efficiency. * Social: Improves access to care, addressing health inequalities and enhancing outcomes for children, increasing employability, and reducing mental health issues. * Environmental: Reduces travel-related emissions by enabling remote support, contributing to NHS net-zero targets. * Cultural/Political: Supports government initiatives to modernise the NHS, promoting digital innovation in healthcare. Aligns with policies to enable more children to receive support without requiring specialist provisions. Our vision is to create a future where every child with SLCN has timely access to personalised support, empowering them to reach their full potential and contribute positively to society.

**Need** Stammering typically begins between the ages of 2 and 6, and becomes chronic in adolescence for 25% of affected children. It affects 8% of children globally and 2% of teenagers and adults. Early detection of stammering in young children is crucial for effective intervention and treatment. However, currently available tools for detecting stammering are designed for speech and language therapists (SLTs), and long waiting lists to access SLTs can worsen mental health challenges. **Project Opportunity** Respira, a UK SME, aims to develop in this project a new therapeutic solution for early detection and progress evaluation of stammering in children who stammer that parents, guardians and caregivers (PGCs) can use and interpret without SLT support. With the support of a previous Innovate UK grant, Respira built BeneTalk: a digital therapeutic solution to provide accessible, effective, and ongoing support for chronic stammering. This project aims to develop a new solution, by leveraging existing BeneTalk expertise/framework/capabilities, thus expanding Respira's market share. The diagnostic and evaluation tools developed in the project will allow also Respira to assess the effectiveness of this project by using real-world data for evidence generation. The project will have a transformative effect on Respira's technical and commercial impact, increasing its TAM, and on the UK economy in terms of taxes and employment. **State-of-the-Art** There are no digital therapeutic solutions available for PGCs of children who stammer (CWS). The current standard of care is face-to-face therapy sessions with SLTs, which are limited or expensive, and without support outside the clinic or post-therapy. This project will be compatible with both the Lidcombe Programme and Palin Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, which are standard treatment practices. This will increase the adoption of this project and achieve better therapy outcomes. **Wider Impact** The project will transform the lives of CWS and PGCs by democratising access to speech therapy: It will improve mental health by addressing anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions that affect both. Developing and commercialising this project will provide a cost-effective solution to tackle inequality due to the "postcode" lottery affecting UK speech therapy pathways. This project will enable the delivery of speech therapy in the home and reduce the need to travel to face-to-face appointments and follow-ups, which is estimated to be 1500 times greener than the standard of care. Developing such a humanitarian business benefits the UK economy due to high-skill jobs created, taxes collected, and national branding.

**Need** Stammering (or stuttering in US English) is a neurodevelopmental disorder, like dyslexia or autism, that starts in childhood and becomes chronic around 12 years of age. It affects 8% of children and 2% of teenagers and adults (BSA, 2022). **The main unmet needs are:** * No cost-effective ongoing/long-term (chronic) support: need for cost-effective support to self-manage chronic stammering (Ward, 2018). * No recognized "best practices" or "gold standard" exists for stammering treatment (Baxter et al., 2016), * Expensive therapy and lack of stammering speech therapy provision and training (Bercow, 2018). **Product Vision** Respira, a UK-based SME, has built a digital therapeutic platform called BeneTalk that can tackle all the above-mentioned unmet needs and address societal inequalities, by building a speech therapy solution for stammering that is: 1. Accessible to everyone (current development): on-demand support to self-manage chronic stammering without professional support intervention. 2. Effective for everyone (this project): delivering a highly personalised digital speech therapy. **Project opportunity** Although there are no standard care options for stammering (i.e., no gold standard), the scientific community agrees that stammering treatment has to be highly individualised (Baxter 2016, Manning & DiLollo, 2017). It is therefore the motivation of this project to build a highly individualised therapy solution for PWS, enabling BeneTalk to be the first evidence-based Digital Therapeutics (DTx) solution for stammering. **Disruptive approach** A previous InnovateUK grant (Ref: 72343) enabled Respira to de-risk and build in-house expertise by developing BeneTalk. Top innovations vs existing technological solutions are: 1\. Real-time Feedback: Visual, audio or haptic feedback in real-time to learn to modify speech patterns and behaviours. 2\. Speech Tracking: Learning and practice at any speaking opportunity (outside the clinic or/and practice environment). 3\. Use of machine learning to improve therapy outcomes: leveraging gathered data from a global user base (this project). 4\. Community-Based Rehabilitation: Community speech practice & peer support. BeneTalk 2.0 was launched with premium features in the UK and U.S., and started generating revue with as a solution 5 to 10x cheaper and more effective than existing solutions. **Outputs** The primary objective of this project is to make further technical improvements into BeneTalk to make it more commercially viable, by integrating individualised therapy for all ages. The main project outputs are (within the "availability period"): 1. Prototyping and testing individualised therapeutics solutions. 2. Validating the new solution with patients, by improving the quality of life of the users and their families (particularly parents).

Up to 3% of the population stammers (British Stammering Association, 2019). This condition can have distressing symptoms that deeply affect social and professional interactions and can define the life choices of those People Who Stammer (PWS): 60% of PWS suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) (McAllister et al., 2017). Even if it is not currently possible to cure stammering, once it is established in adulthood, there exist a series of practices that, when mastered, help PWS to gain fluency levels similar to those of people who don't stammer. For many PWS, the largest problem is not learning the techniques themselves, but turning these practices into habits, as this requires patience and support with ongoing practice. We believe that technology can help in this endeavour: BeneTalk is the first wearable device, which helps People Who Stammer (PWS) to establish and maintain fluency enhancing techniques learned in the initial therapy process. This is achieved through a novel application of digital technologies that enable the first implementation of an out-of-the-clinic therapy, supported by real-time feedback and performance history tracking. As a treatment centred on a wearable device, BeneTalk emerges as a new product linked to an innovative digital service that helps PWS to be in control of their own therapy. BeneTalk delivers a long-awaited solution to an old therapeutic problem with the potential to demonstrate significant step-changes in efficacy, speed and cost. BeneTalk acts as a virtual coach for PWS; as a therapeutic tool for speech and language therapists (SLTs); and a scientific instrument. We have filed a patent for the innovative technology behind BeneTalk as it is the first of its kind. Detailed information about BeneTalk can be found on [www.benetalk.com][0]. This project will validate BeneTalk using scientific and technical evidence, enabling the British Stammering Association (BSA) to endorse BeneTalk therapy as valid and close contact with PWS will help us to better understand commercial requirements. Consequently, BeneTalk will be in a stronger position to raise private funding and commercialise the product. This project will enable the University of Reading (UoR) to publish the results of the first out-of-the-clinic real-time feedback assisted fluency therapy. Publications will be based on an unprecedented quantity and variety of data that may redirect future fluency research. [0]: http://www.benetalk.com/

no public description

"About 1.3% of the population stammers (Reilly et al., 2009). This condition has distressing symptoms that deeply affect social and professional interactions and can define the life choices of those people who stammer (PWS): 60% of PWS suffer from social anxiety disorder (SAD) (McAllister et al., 2017). Even if it is not currently possible to cure stammering, there exist a series of practices that, when mastered, help PWS to gain fluency levels similar to that of a non-stammerer. In addition to mainstream therapist led approaches, several companies such as the Starfish, DelFerro or McGuire Program, currently run courses worldwide to help people to overcome their stammer via these learned techniques. The largest challenge to a PWS is turning these practices into habits, as this requires patience and dedication. We believe that technology can help in this endeavor: with the support of Innovate UK, we are developing a prototype of the first wearable device, RespiraBelt, that tracks breathing and speech patterns, providing real-time feedback and performance history to help PWS turn fluency promoting techniques into habits. Respira will also provide a platform to share the user's performance data with the SLT, who will supervise and customize the therapy. Finally, a discretionary pool of anonymous data will be shared with the scientific community researching stammering. Respira acts as virtual coach for PWS; as a therapeutic tool for SLTs; and a scientific instrument. We have patented the innovative technology behind the RespiraBelt as it is the first of its kind, and in December 2016 our idea was awarded the Terence Barry Grant Award from the Stammer Trust (ST). Detailed information about Respira can be found at www.respira.io and https://goo.gl/6mE4gC. The current project aims at defining the extent to which Respira can be used in a self-supervised manner, and therefore the amount of SLT involvement required for each PWS. This project is conducted by a consortium comprising of the British Stammering Association (BSA), which is in charge of designing and coordinating the experimental trial; the University of Reading (UoR), which will objectively analyze the data gathered and assess the efficacy of the different therapy methods; and Respira Ltd (RespiraLtd), which will lead the project and provide the necessary hardware, software and technical support."

"About 1.3% of the population stammers (Reilly et al., 2009). This condition has distressing symptoms that deeply affect social and professional interactions and can define the life choices of those people who stammer (PWS): 60% of PWS suffers from social anxiety disorder (SAD) (McAllister et al., 2017). Even if it is currently not possible to cure stammering, there exist a series of practices that, when mastered, help PWS to gain fluency levels similar to that of a non-stammerer. In addition to mainstream therapist led approaches, several companies such as the Starfish, DelFerro or McGuire Program, currently run courses worldwide to help people to overcome their stammer via these learned techniques. The largest challenge to a PWS is turning these practices into habits, as this requires patience and dedication. We believe that technology can help in this endeavour: with the support of Innovate UK, we are developing a prototype of the first wearable device, RespiraBelt, that tracks breathing and speech patterns, providing real-time feedback and performance history to help PWS turn fluency promoting techniques into habits. Respira will also provide a platform to share the user's performance data with the speech and language therapist (SLT), who will supervise and customize the therapy. Finally, a discretionary pool of anonymous data will be shared with the scientific community to further stammering research. Respira acts as virtual coach for PWS; as a therapeutic tool for SLTs; and a scientific instrument. We have patented the innovative technology behind the RespiraBelt as it is the first of its kind, and in December 2017 our idea was awarded the Terence Barry Grant Award from the Stammer Trust. Detailed information about Respira can be found at www.respira.io. The current project is aimed at developing the algorithms that will unequivocally detect and evaluate when the user is practising habits that will improve their fluency. For that purpose, AI and machine learning methods will be used. This project is conducted in consortium with the Stammer Trust, which enables a trustful relationship with the PWS taking part in our research, as well as provides assurances that the best interests of our future clients are at the core of our project."

About 1% of the population stutters. This is a condition that deeply affects people who stutter (PWS) at all social, personal and professional levels. Even if it is currently not possible to cure stuttering, there exists a series of practices that, when mastered, help PWS to gain fluency and reach an articulation level similar to that of a non-stutterer. Several companies such as the Starfish Project, Del Ferro Institute or McGuire Program, currently run courses worldwide to help people to overcome their stutter via these learned techniques. The largest challenge to a PWS is turning these practices into habits, as this requires patience and dedication. We have developed a prototype wearable device that tracks speech and breathing patterns, providing real-time feedback to help turn those techniques that improve the fluency of PWS into habits. We have patented the technology behind this prototype as it is the first of its kind, and last December our idea was awarded the Terence Barry Grant Award from the Stammer Trust. Through this project we will commercially and scientifically validate our concept (with potential customers and speech therapists) and finish prototype development. From this process we hope to understand how our device can best help PWS to gain fluency.