Frequently Asked Questions

• Is the LearningTracker app suitable for my child?

  You can use LearningTracker apps to track any child's progress. You can record a variety of developmental milestones tracking social emotional, motor, communication, speech, language and cognitive development in early childhood. You can also record a variety of measures tracking single speech sound discrimination and production, consonant-vowel combinations, word understanding and production, and phrase and sentence understanding and production.

  Currently, recommendations, advice and activities focus on supporting children with Down syndrome and children with similar learning needs from birth. Over time, we hope to extend the availability of recommendations, advice and activities for children with a wider range of needs.

• How does LearningTracker work?

  LearningTracker collects observations about your child's development. LearningTracker then connects stored observations with evidence-based approaches and rich models of early speech and language development to recommend teaching strategies and activities appropriate for your child's current stage of development and learning needs.

  The recommendations, advice and activities provided, and the specifications that define when they are appropriate, are developed by researchers and expert practitioners. The recommendations, advice and activities provided are based on what scientific research tells us about children's development and about effective interventions for children with Down syndrome and children with similar learning needs.

• Does LearningTracker keep my data private?

  When you create a progress tracker for your child using LearningTracker, you control your personal data and your child's personal data. You choose who you share progress reports with and who you allow to add observations.

  When you use LearningTracker, we ask your permission to gather anonymised information from the records you keep for continuing scientific research. Personally-identifying information is removed from data used for these purposes. By sharing anonymised data, you are helping researchers to better understand children's development and learning, and helping to improve support today and in the future.

• What devices can I use the LearningTracker app on?

  When the LearningTracker apps launch, we expect to support:

  • iOS (iPhone and iPad) - version 16.0 and above
  • Windows (tablets, laptops, desktops) - Windows 10 22H2 and higher
  • Android (phones, tablets, Chromebooks, including Kindle) - version 10.0 and higher
  • MacOS (Macs, MacBooks) - macOS 14 and higher
• What languages are supported by LearningTracker?

  We have built LearningTracker to support any number of languages. Initially, LearningTracker will track English speech sounds, words, phrases and sentences, and advice and activities will be presented in English.

  We are working to extend our speech and language models to other languages, and to translate advice and activities.

• Does LearningTracker use AI to provide recommendations?

  LearningTracker does not use large language models (LLMs) to generate recommendations or advice. The recommendations and advice issued is based on predefined specifications that are developed by researchers and expert practitioners. They are based on what scientific research tells us about children's development and about effective interventions for children with Down syndrome and children with similar learning needs.

  We do use tools that include neural network components for natural language analysis in the development of our models of speech and language - including the analysis of sentences and words, parts of speech and morphological features, and syntactic structure. The resulting models are further developed and reviewed by researchers and expert practitioners before being incorporated into our defined specifications for providing recommendations, advice and activities.

  We are committed to the responsible, ethical and transparent use of AI.

• How does LearningTracker relate to See and Learn?

  LearningTracker provides record-keeping, advice and information. See and Learn offers teaching activities to support the development of speech, language, reading and number skills - either using printed teaching materials or on-screen using apps.

  Many of the activities recommended by the LearningTracker for encouraging speech, language and reading development are supported by See and Learn.

  Future versions of the See and Learn apps will connect to the LearningTracker, recording children's achievements in teaching activities automatically.

  Recommendations and activities presented in the LearningTracker will link directly to corresponding activities in future versions of the See and Learn apps.

  LearningTracker will also support See and Learn users using printed teaching materials to record progress and access recommendations for See and Learn teaching activities.

• When will LearningTracker apps be available?

  We are testing the LearningTracker app for families now and hope to release later in 2025. We expect LearningTracker for Professionals to release a 3-6 months later - hopefully in early 2026.

• How can I get involved in testing LearningTracker apps?

  We expect to extend testing of the LearningTracker apps to a wider range of families and professionals in June or July 2025. Join our community forum to get involved.