The necklace
How Saylo works
Updated
In short
Saylo is building a private speech-practice necklace that helps kids work on therapist-selected sounds between sessions, without saving recordings. A child’s speech therapist picks the sounds to work on. While the child talks, the pill in the necklace listens for those practice words, scores each attempt on the spot, can give a gentle buzz, and adds the result to a daily count that parents and therapists can see. The sound itself is never saved.
Where Saylo is today
Saylo is in development. It hasn’t been tested with children yet, and it hasn’t been clinically validated. So far its scoring has only been tried on synthetic, computer-generated voices, which checks that the software runs but says nothing about accuracy with real children. The specifications below are design targets. The research behind Saylo.
How a therapist picks the target sounds
- The child’s speech-language pathologist (SLP) chooses the sound and a list of practice words, along with the speech sound error each word is likely to have (“rabbit” and “wabbit”).
- Saylo is planned to start with R. S will be added only if a pilot with speech therapists shows Saylo can judge it accurately enough.
- Saylo is for practice after a child can already make the sound with their SLP. Learning a brand-new sound starts in therapy.
What your child experiences
- They wear a light necklace. There’s no screen on it.
- A quiet haptic tap, not a beep, so nobody else needs to notice. The therapist decides how the buzz is used; the research Saylo is built on points to buzzing mostly for successes rather than flagging every mistake.
- They can pause it themselves by holding the button for 2 seconds.
- If the family wants it, a playful app shows their progress with a character for each sound. Skipping screens entirely is fine.
How each attempt is scored
| Score | What it means |
|---|---|
| Correct | The attempt sounded like the target, for example “rabbit”. |
| Error | The attempt sounded like the expected speech sound error, for example “wabbit”. |
| Unsure | Saylo couldn’t tell. It gives no buzz, and unsure attempts are counted separately, never as errors. |
Everything is judged on the pill itself. It keeps only the last second or two of sound in memory, constantly overwriting it; after scoring, the sound is gone. It is never saved, sent over Bluetooth or uploaded. Privacy and safety.
What parents see
- Daily and weekly counts for each target sound: correct, error and unsure.
- Times Saylo was paused, so a quiet day isn’t mistaken for a bad one.
- A summary to share with the child’s therapist before each session.
What therapists see
- The same counts per sound per day, optionally broken down by word and by part of the day (morning, afternoon, evening).
- Unsure attempts kept separate, and a clear warning when there isn’t enough data to read a trend.
- The targets and practice words they set. Saylo for speech therapists.
The light and the pause button
- Green blink: on and listening.
- No light: paused or off.
- Red double blink: battery low, still listening.
- Pause: hold the recessed button for 2 seconds. Resuming takes a 3-second hold, or a tap in the parent app, so it can’t switch back on by accident. A buzz confirms each press.
One pill, lots of homes
The pill pops out and moves between holders, so it can grow with a child. The necklace comes first; a hair clip is planned next.
Design targets
| Target | |
|---|---|
| Ages | About 6 to 8 |
| First sound | R (S if a pilot supports it) |
| Battery | About 3 to 4 days per charge |
| Charging | Magnetic cradle with USB-C |
| Water | Sealed shell aiming for IP67 |
| Availability | Therapist early access spring 2027; family beta summer 2027; launch planned early 2028 |
What Saylo isn’t
- A diagnosis or screening tool, or a replacement for a speech therapist.
- A treatment for stuttering or language difficulties. It’s designed for practising speech sounds.
- A recorder. It keeps counts, never audio.