National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Awards
Mary Sweig Wilson, Ph.D. (CCC-SLP) Principal Investigator

At this writing, Laureate Learning Systems has received 12 prestigious Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards from two components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH):

  • The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), which provides support for basic and clinical research designed to improve the lives of individuals with communication disorders; and

  • The National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which provides support for research aimed at ensuring that all children are provided with an opportunity to achieve their full potential for leading healthy and productive lives.

NIH research support was awarded to Laureate through a highly competitive peer-review process designed to identify projects that address important problems in the field, and that are likely to contribute to improvements in clinical practice. Priorities include projects that yield innovative new applications of theoretical concepts, approaches, and methodologies and are designed to improve treatment, services, and preventative interventions. The NIH SBIR program is designed to enable small companies to engage in innovative research and development that has potential to lead to commercial applications that will benefit the public.NIH SBIR support has contributed to the development of Laureate’s Sterling Administration System™ and Laureate’s Sterling Editions™ language intervention programs. The products associated with Laureate’s SBIR awards are summarized below. Consistent with the goals of the NIDCD and NICHD, the curricular design and implementation in each of these products is firmly rooted in linguistic, child language, and special education research.

SBIR Award numbers: 1R43 DC02709-01 and 2 R44 HD35255-02 (NIDCD)
Project to develop software with a focus on training Verbs and Verb argument structure.

  • First Verbs Sterling Edition

  • Exploring Verbs Sterling Edition

  • Simple Sentence Structure Sterling Edition

SBIR Award numbers: 1R43 DC02601-01 and 2 R44 DC02601-02 (NIDCD)
Project to develop software with a focus on training early-emerging Noun vocabulary.

  • First Words Sterling Edition

  • First Words II Sterling Edition

  • Exploring Nouns Sterling Edition

SBIR Award number: 1R43 HD 33333-01 (NICHD)
Project to develop software for developing cognitive skills in children with special needs.

    • First Categories Sterling Edition

SBIR Award numbers: 1R43 DC04487-01 and 2R44 DC004487-02 (NIDCD)
Project to develop software with a focus on training fundamental syntactic forms.

  • LanguageLinks®: Syntax Assessment & Intervention
    (This series has six levels which can be purchased singly or as a package)

  • Prepositions! Sterling Edition

  • Pronoun Perspective Sterling Edition

SBIR Award numbers: 1R43 DC04107-01 and 2R44 DC04107-02 (NIDCD)
Project to develop software with a focus on training the basic syntax and semantics of questions.

  • QuestionQuest™ (This series has three levels which can be purchased singly or as a package)

SBIR Award numbers: 1R43 DC008510-01 and 2R44 DC008510-02 (NIDCD)
Project to develop software with a focus on the syntax of language used to describe other people’s thoughts and experiences, as described by the term “Theory of Mind”.

  • (Product in development, yet to be named)

SBIR Award number: 1R43 HD20756-01 (NICHD)
Project to develop software for children who are struggling with learning to read.

  • Sentence Master (This series has four levels which can be purchased singly or as a package)

As well as the above, the development of Laureate’s custom Optimized Intervention Systems for additional Sterling Edition programs was supported in part by the SBIR awards listed above. These include:

    • My House: Language Activities of Daily Living Sterling Edition

    • My School: Language Activities of Daily Living Sterling Edition

    • My Town: Language Activities of Daily Living Sterling Edition

    • Nouns & Sounds Sterling Edition