About Us
iTherapy's team of highly respected award-winning speech-language pathologists is reinventing speech therapy by innovating and delivering cutting-edge interventions and technology. We are dedicated to improving quality of life for people who struggle with communication challenges.
We believe that the current technology is ready but underutilized and that communication can be mastered if people are provided with the right tools.
We make those tools.
What We Do
We are working to help autistic children and their families by creating a tool that anonymously screens for autism by using speech samples. Research has shown that early intensive intervention services can improve social and communication skills in autistic children. Other studies have shown that these gains can be maintained years later, after services have concluded. So increasing access to early intervention services is one of the key goals of our project.
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But in order for our system to work, we will need your help! To ensure that the technology properly differentiates between autistic and non-autistic children, we will need lots of data from both populations. In the first stage of the project, we will be creating a website that will collect anonymous speech recordings from a variety of children. The recordings will help train the system to identify the unique acoustic traits that are often present in autistic children’s voices.
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If you would like to contribute recordings to the project, please enter your recording(s) here. If you have any questions about EASI-AS and our Phase II SBIR work, please contact us at admin@itherapyllc.com
Who We Are
Lois Jean Brady has over 30 years of experience as a practicing Speech-Language Pathologist, she’s a Certified Autism Specialist (CAS), and she also holds certification in Assistive Technology and in computer-based interventions. Career accomplishments include: Winner of two Autism Speaks App Hack-a-thons, Benjamin Franklin Award for Apps for Autism and an Ursula Award for Autism TodayTV. In addition to Apps for Autism, she has co-authored Speech in Action and Speak, Move, Play and Learn with Children on the Autism Spectrum. Lois gives international presentations to both family members and fellow professionals at conventions and seminars on autism and technology. Currently she is researching and developing engaging, multi-sensory products to enhance communication, attention, cognition and quality of life for individuals with autism. She has co-developed VAST Autism, a series of three highly effective apps for increasing speech production. Lois is also registered in Animal Assisted Therapy. Buttercup, her potbelly pig, frequently accompanies Lois in therapy sessions and is a huge motivator for all. ​ In 2015, Lois and Matthew Guggemos earned a grant through the National Science Foundation's Small Business Innovative Research program. Lois served as the principal investigator in 2018, 2019, and currently for SBIR/NSF and SBIR/NIH grants. As a team, they are working on expanding their platform using technology from Epic Unreal Engine and Snap Camera, Snapchat, and Spectacles.
Matthew is the chief technology officer for iTherapy, LLC’s EASI-AS project. In addition to the current Phase 2 EASI-AS project, Matthew has served as the CTO and/or co-investigator on two Phase one NSF/SBIR projects and one NIH/SBIR project — all of which developed educational technology specifically designed for autistic children and adults. Outside of government-funded projects, Matthew has collaborated with Microsoft, NewSchools Venture Fund, Epic Games, and Snap to develop multi-sensory digital learning products for neurodiverse individuals. Additionally, he received the 2013 Mensa Intellectual Benefits to Society Award for his design contributions to InnerVoice, which was co-developed with iTherapy CEO and speech-language pathologist Lois Jean Brady and MotionPortrait, Inc. In addition to being a speech-language pathologist, Matthew is a father, Brazilian jiu-jitsu student, and drummer. You can read about, watch, and listen to his work here: https://linktr.ee/drumlanguage
Garrett is a speech language pathologist, musician, and research coordinator based between California and Tokyo with a multidisciplinary background in music, language, and cognitive science. Graduating from Emerson College in 2014, he has given presentations in a wide variety of language topics at school districts along with the American Speech Language and Hearing Association Conference in 2018. He is also an internationally touring music professional and an avid surfer. Given his multidisciplinary background, he is passionate about how concepts and technologies from other fields can be re-purposed for the use of treatments for communication disorders. To this end, he was a co-creator of a beatboxing for speech therapy curriculum and part of ongoing research into how current machine learning technology can be applied to speech assessment and intervention.