CEREBRAL PALSY ALLIANCE
A World-First Voice Library for Children with Cerebral Palsy
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A World-First Platform for Voice Research
Kablamo built a gamified, accessible platform for Cerebral Palsy Alliance that collects voice data from children with dysarthria. The world-first open-source library is accelerating research into assistive communication technology for people with cerebral palsy.
“Finding a communication solution for people living with cerebral palsy and dysarthria has long been a central focus.”
Cerebral Palsy Alliance, My Voice Library
The Challenge
Communication is a key pillar of any childhood experience. Much of a child's day involves making themselves heard. But for over 50% of children with cerebral palsy who have difficulties with their speech, it is not that simple. This condition, known as dysarthria, means that while assistive technology exists, these solutions often take 15 to 20 times longer to convey a message compared to normal speech. People with cerebral palsy and dysarthria face communication barriers that current assistive technology has not adequately addressed.
The lack of quality data on the voices of children with CP is a major barrier in the development of assistive technology solutions. There are no large public datasets of human voices with speech impairments available to researchers. Engineers and researchers need large datasets of dysarthric speech to train and test new technology, but collecting this data is difficult and time-consuming. Traditional voice data collection methods fail children with CP because they require sustained attention and repetitive tasks in clinical, sterile environments. High dropout rates and limited dataset growth have hampered previous efforts. CPA needed a platform that could make data collection accessible, engaging, and scalable while respecting the needs and limitations of children with CP. A new approach was needed that made data collection feel like play, not work.
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The Approach
Cerebral Palsy Alliance enlisted Kablamo to help explore how to give children with CP the same rights, access, and opportunities as anyone else. Kablamo designed My Voice Library, a world-first platform for collecting voice and orofacial data from children with cerebral palsy. By gamifying the collection process, the platform makes it easier and quicker to assemble a significant, open-source library that biomedical engineers, speech pathologists, and researchers can use to develop the next generation of assistive technology.
The solution was celebrated for its user-friendly and engaging experience. Children create their avatar and enter colourful, themed worlds designed to feel familiar and welcoming. Voice recording is disguised as mini-games, with prompts delivered through engaging characters and scenarios. The application includes multiple difficulty levels with a point-based reward system, custom characters for personalisation, age- and gender-neutral content, and fun facts and trivia integrated into each level. Each recording earns rewards, unlocks new worlds, and contributes to a growing library visible to participants. The system captures both voice and facial-movement data during interactive gameplay where participants repeat sentences on camera.
The platform required a cost-effective, scalable architecture that could handle unpredictable usage patterns while maintaining strict data security for sensitive voice recordings from children. Scalability, accessibility, and cost optimisation drove the architectural decisions. Kablamo implemented a cloud-native approach using Amazon S3 and CloudFront for the static frontend, with a lightweight Lambda and API Gateway backend connected to DynamoDB. Amazon EC2 provides scalable, secure compute capacity for application processing, and Amazon EBS delivers high-performance block storage for database and analytics requirements. Restrictive S3 bucket policies ensure that once uploaded, recordings cannot be re-downloaded by the application. Encryption at rest, managed authentication, and comprehensive audit logging ensure data security and compliance for research involving minors. This architecture keeps ongoing hosting costs extremely low while scaling automatically.
The Results
My Voice Library is the first time voice samples have been collected from children who have a dysarthric speech condition. The gamified modules make it easier for children to go through the tasks, enabling engineers and researchers to develop and test new technology with the repetitions of sounds and words they need. The platform is designed to scale as the participant base grows. My Voice Library was recognised at the 2023 Good Design Awards for its innovative approach to accessible technology and human-centred design.
The platform enables direct connections between parents and researchers, giving families access to individualised speech solutions that would previously have been out of reach. The open-source nature of the library means researchers globally can access the dataset, accelerating the pace of assistive technology development.
Looking Forward
My Voice Library represents a new approach to assistive technology development, one that puts the people who will benefit from the technology at the centre of the research process. As the library grows, it will enable engineers and researchers to develop and test new communication solutions that could improve quality of life for people with dysarthria. Future plans include integration of AWS machine learning capabilities to develop bespoke communication technologies tailored to individual speech patterns. The cloud-native architecture means the platform can scale to support thousands of participants without additional infrastructure investment, and the gamified collection approach has proven that inclusive research design can produce better data than traditional clinical methods.
The platform demonstrates how thoughtful design, combined with modern cloud architecture, can create meaningful impact for underserved communities while building valuable research infrastructure for the future. This project is featured as an AWS case study.
