Our Vision:
Early detection of learning delay for all children
The problem we are solving
Traditional assessments are heavily reliant on the child’s ability to understand instructions and so often are testing language ability, not cognitive ability or what psychologists call “executive function”.
Most of these assessments have been standardised in English speaking populations and so are difficult to interpret in children whose mother tongue is not English.
Most public health screening programs rely on parental questionnaires. These questionnaires are influenced by parent’s knowledge of their child, and are focused on developmental milestones.
The academic team behind Liltoda have developed CogniTOT to solve these problems and to improve the early detection of learning difficulties.
Since 2014 we have studied how children interact with touchscreen devices and touchscreen tasks. These tasks are language free and scoring is independent of the administrator, improving inter-rater reliability and providing robust and targeted assessment.
Who We Are
Prof Deirdre Murray - CEO
MB BAO BcH, FRCPi, FPAED, PhD
I am a consultant paediatrician, the Chair of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University College Cork. For almost two decades my research has focused on early brain injury and on finding better ways to predict outcome following early brain injury. This work led our team to recognise that current methods of diagnosing cognitive delay are heavily language focussed and subjective. In many cases, mild or moderate delay will go undetected until school age, beyond the window of early intervention. Since 2014 my research team have focused on understanding how young children interact with touchscreen devices and how this interaction can be harnessed to measure early executive function.
I am the lead for Paediatric Research in the INFANT centre: www.infantcentre.ie. Liltoda is the first academic spin-out company of the INFANT centre and is one of many academic companies to come from the research of University College Cork.
A full list of my publications can be seen here: https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/298284/overview
Mike Cunneen - CTO/COO
BSc. Business Information Systems, UCC
I am a full stack mobile/web developer/designer and since 2008, I have been building innovative web and mobile applications to solve real-world problems, with a big focus on excellent User Experience (UX) design.
Since 2015, I have worked with the INFANT Research Centre (a research centre focused on improving health outcomes for mothers and babies - https://www.infantcentre.ie ).
At INFANT, I have been the senior developer/designer on a number of mobile app and web developments, including a connected health platform which monitors ante-natal blood pressure at-home during pregnancy and the BabyScreen / Cognitot App project.
I am passionate about improving Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) / the User Experience (UX). My work focuses on reducing the friction for our users. I am excited to take all this experience and learning and apply it to what we do at Liltoda.
Mairead Murray
BSc, HDip, MSc
I am a Clinical Research Project Manager with over 12 years of experience in paediatrics. I have managed academic, industry led, single centre, multi-centre, international, non-regulated and regulated trials and clinical investigations.
My experience is in the delivery of research projects, from initial scoping through to budget and contract negotiation. I specialise in research governance, including ethics, and competent authorities compliance.
My interest is the delivery of paediatric research that will change healthcare and improve outcomes for children.
Sean Murray - Founder & Managing Director, Hello Games, Guildford, UK
Hello Games and its subsidiary Hello Labs has worked with the researchers of the Liltoda Lab to develop the CogniTOT and BabyScreen applications. Incorporating the best of gaming technology to solve a real problem for researchers studying early brain development. Until now it was really hard to separate language skills from early problem solving abilities. CogniTOT has been developed to address this problem.
Read more about Hello Games here https://hellogames.org/
Our Research
Publications
Concurrent validity of a touchscreen application to detect early cognitive delay
Date: 2020
Objective: To explore the ability of an interactive screening tool to identify cognitive delay in children aged 18 to 24 months.
Design: Children were assessed using the Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development-third edition (BSID-III) and a touchscreen measure of problem-solving (Babyscreen V.1.5). We examined the internal consistency and concurrent validity between the two measures. A BSID-III cognitive composite score (BSID-IIIcc) ≤1 SD below population mean was used to indicate a low average cognitive ability.
Feasibility of using touch screen technology for early cognitive assessment in children
Date: 2018
Objective: To explore the feasibility of using a touch screen assessment tool to measure cognitive capacity in toddlers.
Design: 112 typically developing children with a median age of 31 months (IQR: 26-34) interacted with a touch screen cognitive assessment tool. We examined the sensitivity of the tool to age-related changes in cognition by comparing the number of items completed, speed of task completion and accuracy in two age groups; 24-29 months versus 30-36 months.
Touch-screen technology usage in toddlers
Date: 2016
Objective: To establish the prevalence and patterns of use of touch-screen technologies in the toddler population.
Design: Parental questionnaires were completed for children aged 12 months to 3 years examining access to touch-screen devices and ability to perform common forms of interaction with touch-screen technologies.