"There simply aren't enough speech-language pathologists in the United States and, as a result, children are not receiving life-changing interventions soon enough," says Venu Govindaraju, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University at Buffalo.
That's why the school has been awarded a $20 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to create an AI Institute for Exceptional Education, the Buffalo News reports.
The goal of the institute is to develop artificial intelligence systems to identify and help children ages 3 to 10 who are at risk of falling behind in their academic and socioemotional development.
Researchers will create two AI solutions: the AI Screener for early identification of potential speech and language impairments and disorders, and the AI Orchestrator, which will act as a virtual teaching assistant.
The AI Screener will collect samples of children's speech, facial expressions, gestures, and other data, creating weekly summaries of these interactions.
These summaries will help teachers monitor their students' speech and language processing abilities and, if needed, suggest a formal evaluation with a speech-language pathologist.
The AI Orchestrator is an app that will help speech-language pathologists, most of whom have average caseloads so large that they are forced to provide group-based...
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