Ep. 8 From Handmade Worksheets to AI: Reinventing Speech Therapy 3-19-26

This story starts long before AI — at a kitchen table.In this episode, I sit down with Julius Hoffmann, Co‑Founder of SLPractice, to explore the deeply personal journey behind one of the most thoughtful AI tools in speech, language, and special education today.

Julius grew up watching his mum — a speech and language therapist with over 30 years of experience — spend countless nights hand‑crafting therapy resources. She didn’t rely on generic worksheets. Instead, she created activities tailored to each child’s interests, because she believed therapy only sticks when children actually enjoy it — and when families feel motivated to continue practice at home.

Looking back, she credits much of her clients’ progress to deep personalisation and consistent home carryover. Research agrees: interest‑based content increases engagement, particularly for neurodivergent children, and children who practise several times a week make significantly stronger gains than those seen just once weekly.But there’s a problem — time.

In 2025, Julius and his co‑founder Will interviewed over 100 speech and language therapists and heard the same challenges again and again: overwhelming caseloads, 12‑month waitlists, and families and schools stretched too thin to keep up with home practice.

Drawing on years of experience building technology, they realised that Generative AI could finally bridge this gap — not by replacing therapists, but by removing the most time‑consuming parts of the job. The result was SLPractice: a platform that allows therapists to create personalised, engaging therapy resources in minutes and share them digitally, so home practice actually happens.Built alongside a growing community of practitioners, SLPractice continues to evolve through constant feedback, new games, and real‑world use — all with one goal: empowering therapists to do their best work in a system under pressure.

This episode is for speech and language therapists, educators, founders, parents, and anyone interested in human‑centred AI — and what can happen when technology is built from lived experience.

🎧 Listen in to hear how one family story turned into a platform helping move the field forward.

Learn more about today's guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliushoffmann

Website: https://www.slpractice.com

“Welcome to Assistive Tech Today Podcast — where innovation meets inclusion.I’m Vinny L, an assistive technology specialist with over twenty-four years of experience supporting children, teens, and adults with special needs through technology.From product design and development to education, consulting, and hands-on demonstrations, this podcast is dedicated to exploring today’s cutting-edge assistive and adaptive technologies.This is Assistive Tech Today Podcast — empowering lives through technology.”"Please note: Many people in the neurodiverse community prefer identity‑first language and describe themselves as “Autistic,” which is also the language our guest typically uses. At the same time, there are individuals, families and professionals who grew up with or prefer using person‑first language (“person with autism”). We want to acknowledge these differences and honor the full range of perspectives within the community.""The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this program belong solely to the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or views of any agency, company, or entity they represent.

"Video and audio editing by Chichi67: https://www.hyperfollow.com/chichi67

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