UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new, national institute that develops artificial intelligence (AI) systems that identify and assist young children with speech and/or language processing challenges has been established at the University at Buffalo thanks to a five-year, $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The institute includes researchers from nine universities, including Penn State.
The institute will address the nationwide shortage of speech-language pathologists and work to ensure that children who are at-risk of developing language deficits receive timely, effective assistance. Their mission is to provide services to children ages 3 to 10 who are at increased risk of falling behind in their academic and socio-emotional development — issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The AI Institute for Exceptional Education also will advance foundational AI technologies, human-centered AI design, and learning science that improve educational outcomes for young children.
Institute will help underserved students
The AI Institute for Exceptional Education will focus on serving the millions of children nationwide who, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, require speech and language services.
Specially, it will develop two advanced AI solutions: the AI Screener for early identification of potential speech and/or language impairments and disorders; and the AI Orchestrator, which will act as a virtual teaching assistant by providing students with ability-based interventions.
The AI Screener will listen to and observe children in the classroom, collecting samples of children’s speech, facial expressions, gestures and other data. It will create weekly summaries of these interactions that catalogue each child’s vocabulary, pronunciation, video snippets and more. 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.
Carol Miller, professor of communication sciences and disorders at Penn State, is a member of the institute’s subgroup on learning science for children with disabilities. Miller, whose work focuses on language development, will contribute to development of the AI screener.
“There are many well-known reasons that children develop language problems, like autism or intellectual disability,” Miller said. “But many children develop language problems that have no clear cause, and these children often fall through the cracks of our educational system. The AI screener will be able to evaluate more video footage than a speech language pathologist or teacher could possibly watch. With the AI Screener, we believe that we will be able to identify children early so that we can get them the help they need.”
This is critical because, typically, the earlier speech and language concerns are addressed, the greater the likelihood children will excel academically and socio-emotionally, according to the researchers.
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 interventions for children instead of individualized care, according to the researchers. The app addresses this by recommending personalized content tailored to students’ needs. It continues to monitor students’ progress and adjusts lesson plans to ensure that the interventions are working.
Institute composed of top research universities
The institute will consist of more than 30 researchers from nine universities including University at Buffalo; Penn State; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Stanford University; the University of Washington; Cornell University; the University of Nevada, Reno; the University of Texas at El Paso; and the University of Oregon.
These scholars specialize in artificial intelligence, natural language processing, social robotics, communicative disorders, diversity and inclusivity, learning science, communication and other fields.
Before she was involved with the institute, Miller became co-principal investigator of the Linguistic Diversity Across the Lifespan graduate research traineeship program. Researchers in the Linguistic Diversity Across the Lifespan program are investigating AI to serve people with communication needs based on primary language, dialect, learning disability, or other factors. Miller said that she is excited about the potential for forming connections between that program and the new institute.
Additional partners include Buffalo Public Schools; Amherst Central School District, Amherst New York; Sweet Home Central School District, Amherst, New York; Washoe County School District, Reno, Nevada; The Summit Center, Amherst New York; Buffalo-area Engineering for Minorities; Nevada Robotics, Desert Research Institute; Gigi’s Playhouse, Buffalo, New York; Western New York STEM Hub; and UB Early Childhood Research Center.
Read more about this new grant in the press release issued by University at Buffalo.