Dwight Irvin, Ph.D., is helping to transform early childhood language assessments through a pilot project in partnership with researchers at Juniper Gardens Children’s Project.
As an affiliate investigator, Irvin’s work with speech recognition in community spaces laid the groundwork for using AI to streamline Early Communication Indicator (ECI) assessments, a tool that helps identify children who may benefit from language interventions. The project aims to automate the complex coding of ECI assessments, a task traditionally requiring many hours and trained evaluators, to provide faster, more accessible evaluations.
“This groundbreaking work will help solve the scoring burden individuals can encounter when using the ECI and, in all likelihood, increase practitioner usage, ensuring more children gain the language skills needed for school and life.” Irving said.
The project, led by Juniper Gardens’ Rebecca Davis, Ph.D., could dramatically reduce delays in accessing interventions, enabling children with language delays to receive therapeutic support at an earlier age, when they are more responsive to treatment.
Funding for the project is supported by a Research Rising Pilot Award through the University of Kansas’ Life Span Institute. According to a release from the institute, “this work was inspired by Dwight Irvin’s work in using speech recognition tools to measure adult-child interactions in community spaces.”
Dwight Irvin, Ph.D.