LENA Foundation

LENA Foundation
Industry Language Technology
Founded 2009
Headquarters Boulder, Colorado
Area served
 International
Key people
 Terrance and Judith Paul (founders)
Products LENA Pro, LENA Pro - Pilot Version, LENA Pro - Graduate Student Version, LENA Language and Autism Screen (LLAS), and LENA Developmental Snapshot
Website http://www.lenafoundation.org

The LENA Research Foundation is a developer of advanced technology to accelerate language development of children 0-5 and for research and treatment of language delays and disorders. The nonprofit organization was created in 2009 through a donation of assets of Infoture Inc. by Terrance "Terry" and Judith "Judi" Paul, who are also majority owners of Renaissance Learning Inc. (RLI).

The foundation’s principal product is the LENA System. The LENA System product line comprises LENA Pro, LENA Pro - Pilot Version, LENA Pro - Graduate Student Version, LENA Language and Autism Screen (LLAS), and the LENA Developmental Snapshot.[1]

LENA Research Foundation customers include institutions of higher education, such as Brown University and Stanford University, and a number of schools for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.[2]

History

As the founder of Renaissance Learning, Terry Paul became familiar with the achievement gap caused by differences in home language environments. In 1998 he read Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Lives of Young American Children by Betty Hart, Ph.D., and Todd Risley, Ph.D. Based on data gathered through an intensive longitudinal study, Meaningful Differences revealed that the number of adult words spoken to children from birth to three predicted almost all of the variance in the children’s language ability and IQ at age three.

Terry realized that with the help of advanced speech recognition technology he could streamline the data acquisition process and provide parents with a tool that was easy to use and could thoroughly chart a child’s natural language environment. He called it LENA (for “language environment analysis”).

In 2004 Terry started Infoture, Inc. and hired a team of scientists, engineers, and scientific advisors to conduct the research and development work for the LENA System. Infoture launched a pilot version of the LENA System in February 2006. In February 2009 the Pauls donated the assets from Infoture and a gift of $2 million to create the LENA Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization.[1]

Philosophy

LENA Research Foundation believes that the more talk and conversational engagements a child experiences in the first four years, the better off he or she will be in academics and society. With its growing list of LENA System products, the foundation is determined to help close the gap between the haves and have nots that frequently divides this country and the world.[1]

LENA System

LENA stands for "Language ENvironment Analysis." The LENA System provides more than 25 different metrics on the natural language environment of children, including estimates and percentile scores for adult words spoken to the child, conversational turns, and child vocalizations. The system also generates an automatic expressive language developmental age and percentile score based on a child’s voiceprint.[1]

Core Language Metrics

[3]

How LENA Works

LENA Digital Language Processor (DLP)
LENA Clothing

A parent places a LENA Digital Language Processor (DLP) in his or her children's LENA Clothing and records an entire day of the child's sound environment. The parent then connects the DLP to a personal computer with special software that estimates the child's exposure to verbal stimulation, the number of child utterances, and other metrics. As pediatricians do with a child's height and weight, the system also generates percentile scores comparing the child's chronological age with the child's developmental age.[4]

LENA System Product Line

LENA Pro

The foundation’s premium product, LENA Pro is designed to enable researchers, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and pediatricians to collect, process, and analyze language environment and development data easily.[5]

LENA Pro enables users to:

LENA Pro - Pilot Version

LENA Pro - Pilot Version provides a limited, one-year LENA Pro software license including training, support, and maintenance services.[7]

LENA Pro - Graduate Student Version

LENA Pro - Graduate Student Version is a version of LENA Pro that is available for two years and for a client management pool of up to 25 research subjects.[5]

LENA Language and Autism Screen

LENA Language and Autism Screen (LLAS) analyzes child vocalizations to automatically and objectively calculate the risk of autism, identify the presence of language delays, and assess the quality of a child's language environment.[8]

LENA Home

LENA Home developed for parents, quantifies and analyzes conversations between caregiver and child, helping to ensure that child is experiencing the type of rich language environment that leads to an advanced learning trajectory.

LENA Developmental Snapshot

The LENA Developmental Snapshot, based on a 52-question parent survey, assesses both expressive and receptive language skills and provides an estimate of a child’s developmental age from 2 months to 36 months.[9]

LENA Research Foundation findings

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Archived February 17, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ Archived August 19, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/20090216015226/http://www.lenafoundation.org:80/Resources/Glossary.aspx. Archived from the original on February 16, 2009. Retrieved April 15, 2009. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ↑ "Baby-Talk Show". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-01-16.
  5. 1 2 "Search thousands of SLP jobs - All Jobs". SpeechPathology.com. 2015-06-17. Retrieved 2016-01-16.
  6. ↑ https://web.archive.org/20090923023552/http://www.lenafoundation.org:80/ProSystem/Overview.aspx?. Archived from the original on September 23, 2009. Retrieved April 16, 2009. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. ↑ https://web.archive.org/20111007040236/http://www.lenafoundation.org/LenaPro-Pilot.aspx. Archived from the original on October 7, 2011. Retrieved September 15, 2010. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ↑ "LENA Research Foundation – Nurturing minds, changing lives". Lenababy.com. 2014-06-20. Retrieved 2016-01-16.
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ https://web.archive.org/20090223104856/http://www.lenafoundation.org:80/Research/TechnicalReports.aspx?. Archived from the original on February 23, 2009. Retrieved April 24, 2009. Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

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