How Little Words writes and reviews parent guides

Published by Little Words Editorial · Updated August 10, 2026

Parents should be able to tell who published a page, how its claims were checked, what the company is selling, and where the limits are. This policy names the people accountable for each check and explains our evidence, clinical safety, conflicts, corrections, suspension rules, and review schedule.

How does Little Words review a parent guide?

Who is accountable?

Little Words is the publisher. Company experience can explain how the product works, but it is not a clinical credential. These roles must be recorded before a guide is released:

• Content owner: answers the reader's question, maintains the claim record, resolves editorial findings, and makes the final publish or hold decision.
• Product verifier: checks feature, platform, age, price, privacy, and availability statements against the current product and public store record.
• Clinical reviewer, when named: checks clinical accuracy, safety, scope, and wording within their qualifications. Little Words does not add a clinician name or reviewer markup unless that review occurred.
• Privacy or policy owner, when needed: reviews tracking, data, consent, legal, or child-safety statements that fall within their remit.

The content owner cannot mark a page ready while a required check is missing, a material source is unresolved, or the public product record conflicts with the page.

Evidence and source standards

Clinical statements should use current guidance from professional bodies, government health services, peer-reviewed research, or original consensus papers. Product claims should use the product itself, official documentation, or the current store listing. Secondary sources may help discovery, but they do not replace a stronger available source. We state uncertainty when experts disagree and avoid turning signs, milestones, or screening results into a diagnosis.

Each material claim is recorded with its page, source, source date, supporting passage or rationale, claim type, and review result. Unsupported claims are rewritten or removed. Citations must lead to the source that actually supports the nearby statement.

As of August 10, 2026, the primary sources cited across Little Words guides are the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics and HealthyChildren.org, the NIDCD, the M-CHAT-R/F authors at mchatscreen.com, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, IDEA at ed.gov, ICD10Data.com, and American Family Physician. Citations on our pages show the date each link was checked.

Release checks

1. Define the reader, search intent, direct answer, and safe next step.
2. Separate observed product facts, clinical information, editorial judgment, and marketing language.
3. Check every material claim against the evidence record and reject wording the evidence does not support.
4. Confirm commercial disclosure, AAC and neurodiversity boundaries, and the absence of diagnosis or treatment promises.
5. Compare visible copy with titles, summaries, dates, links, canonical tags, structured data, and machine-readable discovery files.
6. Test keyboard access, focus, zoom, reflow, mobile layouts, missing assets, and performance budgets.
7. Record the release decision, unresolved risks, evidence hashes, and exact revision. A failed required check results in a hold.

How we use drafting tools

Tools may help organize research, check consistency, and find gaps. They are not treated as experts and do not receive a byline. A page remains pre-release until product claims, clinical framing, citations, and final wording complete the evidence check.

How we handle commercial conflicts

Little Words makes and sells the app discussed on this site. Product pages and comparisons should say that plainly. We do not publish invented testimonials, fake review scores, or undisclosed clinical endorsements. A recommendation from Little Words is a recommendation from the company that makes the product.

Medical and developmental information

Our guides are educational. They do not diagnose a child, prescribe treatment, or replace an evaluation from a qualified professional. We support speech, gestures, pictures, signs, and AAC as valid forms of communication. We do not frame eye contact, stillness, compliance, or appearing neurotypical as communication goals.

What does a claim review look like?

For example, a draft might say that an app treats childhood apraxia of speech. We would reject that statement because the product does not diagnose or provide motor-speech treatment. The publishable version would explain that an SLP chooses CAS targets and cues, while optional app practice can only repeat those clinician-selected targets. See the applied boundaries in our apraxia practice guide and speech practice app guide.

Review schedule

High-risk clinical and developmental guides are scheduled for review at least every 12 months. Product comparisons and pages with price, availability, platform, privacy, or age information are checked with each material product release and at least every 6 months. Other parent guides are reviewed at least every 24 months. A new safety notice, changed professional guidance, product change, credible correction, or broken material source triggers an earlier review.

Corrections, complaints, and suspension

Readers can report an error through our contact page. The content owner records and triages the report within 5 business days. A claim that could cause harm, misstate a diagnosis or treatment, erase AAC, expose private data, or materially mislead a purchase decision is hidden or held as soon as it is confirmed, with a target of 1 business day for the initial safety action. Other confirmed material errors receive a correction plan and target date.

A corrected page updates its modified date and, when the change affects meaning, adds a plain-language correction note. Unresolved safety findings, missing evidence, false attribution, broken critical citations, or conflicting product records are release blockers. The page stays unpublished, is temporarily removed, or has the affected claim removed until the accountable owner closes the finding. Complaints that the content owner cannot resolve are escalated to the Little Words publisher for a documented final decision.

Current product age policy

Little Words supports children ages 2 to 10. Primary product positioning focuses on ages 2 to 8, where early-language and late-talker demand is strongest. Children ages 9 and 10 receive age-respectful activities matched to communication access. Apple's 4+ content rating is a separate content classification. No page in this release names a clinical reviewer, so none should be represented as clinician reviewed.