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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BLAPP (Blapp, A fun game for the child, an effective tool for the therapist!)

Teaser

Summary

Up to 10% of children in schooling years are affected by some kind of language or communication disorder which interferes with the normal development of language skills according to ASHA (American Speech-Language Hearing Association). Said disorders can be developmental (such as Specific Language Impairment -SLI) or acquired (such as those caused by oncologic brain conditions, vascular accidents or trauma). The number of disorders that require speech therapy interventions are diverse (Aphasia, Dislays, Dysglossia, Dysfemia, among others). Approximately 20% of children receiving
special education services are receiving support for speech and language disorders. This estimate does not include children who receive services for speech and language disorders that are secondary to other conditions. More than one-half (55.2%) of all 3 to 5 years old with a disability receive speech and language services1. In Spain, speech and language disorders affect 6% of school-age children and up to a 15% in pre-school age children according to the Spanish Paediatric Association (AEP).

Market opportunity: Over the past five years, the Speech-Language Pathology-related industry has grown by 3.8% to reach revenue of $4bn in 2017. The number of businesses has grown by 3.6% and the number of employees has grown by 4.0%.
Due to insufficient sanitary resources, families organization (parent\'s work, siblings, transport,..), therapist workload, among others, speech therapy is normally done once or twice a week, which is insufficient. Blapp will contribute to solve this problem by transforming therapy activities into an online serious game.

The main objective of this project is to address a market need by providing an effective support solution for the management and rehabilitation of speech and language disorders in children.

Work performed

In SME Phase 1, the accomplished objective was to advance in the development moving from TRL4 to TRL6; to conduct a feasibility study to assess the market potential and define a commercial strategy; to identify potential customers and to define a business plan to attract investors and key commercial partners.

After having designed the general behaviour and look and feel of the application, we have begun a test plan with therapists, in order to review the therapy system (TRL5); and with patients accompanied by their therapists (TRL6). The testing has been done incrementally, so each step benefits from the feedback from the previous steps and learnings have end up with new improvements introduced to the product to be re-tested in next step in an agile development way.

First test: therapists (isolated activities). Aimed at polishing the technical aspects of game development, game engines and dynamics from the point of view of their therapy value, and the backend with positive feedback and promising results.

Second test: patients (isolated activities). Aimed at detecting issues in the voice recognizing algorithms, the therapy adaptation algoritms and in the game dynamics from the point of view of user experience, and at testing the attractiveness of the narrative layers.

Third test: both therapists and patients (whole sessions). Aimed at evaluating some technical and qualitative aspects such as adaptation of each activity to its context, understandability, speed, fatigue levels of the users.

In terms of business feasability, commercialization, go-to-market strategy, financial plan, market entrance and IP strategy a whole business plan have been developed, adjusting next steps and business objectives and opening the way for a parallel strategy of medical and not medical marketing and commercialization plan with a B2B and B2C targeted strategy aimed at healthcare organizations, private practitioners, schools and final users.

Accomplished TRL 6 and business feasability, we belive next step is to apply to SME Phase 2 that will help on the next steps to extend validation of the product through large-scale pilots and clinical trials in real case scenarios, pass regulation (CE Mark) and prepare for commercialization in Spain. This phase will help explore the European target markets selected on Phase 1 through piloting activities, regulatory assessment and product validation. To adapt and validate Blapp for use in other languages re-designs, training and validation of the Speech Recognition and adaptive algorithms will be mandatory. Next steps in commercialization will focus on consolidation of commercialization in Spain, starting other market\' need validation first in Italy by 2025 and market launch in strategic European countries selected in Phase 2.

Final results

The proposal solution has 3 differential features:

1. The use of AI algorithms that will analyse data to learn and adapt the therapy to the evolution of each patient (Patient profiling).
2. Voice recognition algorithms specially designed for the targeted population.
3. A gamified therapy with stimulating challenges and rewards.

Potential impacts mean:
1. For patients: improving clinical outcomes, improving therapy adherence and personalizing the therapy.
2. For therapists: facilitating follow up, reducing workload and facilitating data gathering, which can be also used for further research. This tool can be of great benefit also in efficiency terms, helping increase the number of patients per therapist ratio with direct impact in cash-flow.
3. For families: facilitating follow up by reducing the logistic limitations of face to face visits, giving freedom to conduct the rehabilitation from home or wherever they have an internet connection.
4. For the healthcare system: reducing the costs of health services provision providing more value for the same activity.

In the digital era we are living, there is a need for new treatments thats thanks to the correct use of new technologies improves clinical outcomes, per capita cost-effectiveness and patient, family and professional experience of care.