"I built this because my daughter needed a little more time to find her words. And I wanted to help."
My daughter turned four in September. She has a significant speech delay, sensory sensitivities, big emotions, and a mind that moves in its own beautiful way. She is in speech therapy once a week, but between appointments I felt like I was supposed to be doing so much more at home and did not know how. The flashcards lasted two minutes before a meltdown. The exercises assumed she would sit still, make eye contact, and repeat on command, and the harder I pushed, the more she shut down. I am an engineer and I work with AI, so I started building something just for her: a little character called Buddy that meets her where she is. No eye contact required, no sitting still, just a patient voice that plays on her terms. She will sit with Buddy for ten to fifteen minutes, far longer than she will practice with me, because Buddy never gets frustrated and never makes a face when she says something wrong.
Will, founder of Little WordsND dad first