Consider This: Children (Part 1) — Innovation in Screening Developmental Delays - Video Dailymotion

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International studies estimate between 10-15% of all children have a developmental delay or disability, but most are only identified when they enter formal primary education. By then, it’s often too late. When a child isn’t school-ready, they quickly fall behind their peers, and the trajectory of their academic future is compromised. Could technology help close the early developmental screening and intervention gap? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Shun Matsuzaka, co-founder of Toy8, which has created a digital early childhood development screening and intervention tool. They’ve recently partnered with the Territory of Sarawak to conduct developmental screenings in preschools.

Transcript

00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show

00:15where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day. International

00:20studies estimate between 10 to 15 percent of all children have a developmental delay

00:26or disability but most are only identified when they enter formal primary schooling but by then

00:33it's often too late because when a child isn't school ready they often fall behind their peers

00:39and the trajectory of their economic future is compromised. So can technology help close the

00:48early developmental screening and intervention gap? Well joining us on the show today is Shun

00:53Matsuzaka who is the co-founder of Toy8 which has created an early a digital early childhood

01:00development screening and intervention tool they've recently partnered with the territory of Sarawak

01:05to conduct developmental screenings in preschools. Shun thank you so much for being on the show with

01:10me today. Can you begin by sharing a little bit about what gap you saw in early childhood

01:17developmental support what what did you identify what was your uh how does your solution attempt to

01:24address it? Thanks for so thanks so much for having me um yes i um let me start with my my personal

01:33story i have mild dyslexia and um i struggle reading um just like you said um i didn't know the word

01:43dyslexia but i knew it is really difficult to read um when i as soon as when i enrolled um primary school

01:52um so when i since i become a parent in malaysia then i realized that there is no developmental

02:01support system is provided for all the children um so um we came up um with the uh the product of

02:11digital developmental screening which we can provide the um developmental screening without the specialist

02:19uh presence um yeah maybe you can tell us a bit about um the the what does your tool do about the toy8

02:28tool how does it uh screen for developmental conditions in children yes so um we have um studied japanese

02:39developmental screening or western like uk or u.s developmental screening and we've worked with um

02:48sunway and university malaya to localize those um developmental screening system and um turn it into

02:57fun game um sets and our developmental screening can um the kids can spend about 20 minutes to screen

03:06um children's um children's developmental milestones including language and speech cognitive um five

03:15motors gross motors all those um important um developmental milestones can be screened through playing games

03:26um shun is this so you mentioned that this is to allow for screening of many children without a

03:35specialist specialist present can i ask you is it meant to replace clinical diagnosis is that is that a

03:41dangerous line to tread yeah thanks for asking yes um it is definitely not um replacing um doctor's

03:51diagnosis um as i said it needs to the diagnosis needs to be done by the doctors but um in here in malaysia

04:00and most of the asean countries actually facing the lack of the specialist and there are very very long

04:07waiting lists um sometimes starts from humans until the very popular um pediatricians um you need to wait

04:17like three years so it is way too long and um it is a big loss because 90 of the brain and 40 of the

04:27physical develops during um zero to six years which we call golden age and imagine if you um lose this

04:37three years or even one year it is a big loss and it is very important for everyone to go through

04:44developmental screening and um at least finding some red flags that we know that these child needs

04:53some sort of early intervention so that we can kind of um support improving whatever the developmental

05:00delay that they are facing i see so this is just um a measure before just as to get an indication of

05:08if a child requires um intervention and support later on to be diagnosed by a specialist so so talk to me

05:15a lot a bit about your collaboration your program with the uh sarawak state government how have you been

05:21been working with them and what are you seeing so far yes thank you um so we have um started our pilot

05:30with um sarawak um kpwk um because um the government is initiating um uh this um policy called um open door

05:42policy with um the um school network um and they are um trying to um accept as many developmental delay

05:55children or children with any um support uh needed um so they they um pretty much trying to accept it but

06:04they are also facing some of the um issues which is um the teacher's skill set are not really um

06:12um trained or capable enough to accept them so um we provide this developmental screening and

06:22intervention um tools um which is digital and very easy to play just just a game um for kids and

06:30teachers and the we we started last year to provide it last year we provided 300 children in total in

06:39sedidec and the private schools and then um this year we expanded um up to 450 um now they are expanding

06:49to um six different area of um sarawak all right so so what happens after children play this game and

06:59if they are um flagged as having developmental delays what then happens to the child who gets notified

07:06how are they um provided support uh and intervention as you mentioned is there capacity to do so with

07:14more children um hopefully getting diagnosed early but will they get the support that they need yes

07:22so um we screen and we are expecting about 10 to 15 percent of the children who need developmental

07:31support after screening so last year for example um we have identified about 30 children who need

07:39intervention yeah so we have identified about 30 children and we provided our intervention program

07:49which is also um using the same game tool um as the screening and um teacher can provide um intervention

08:00program which is tailor-made for every single children so for example this child a has got language speech

08:09delay um because we know the screening score um from about over 3000 game sets we will pick up the right

08:19game sets and provide um uh targeted um game uh it's called uh sorry individualized education program so we can

08:31provide and tailor-made individualized education programs um for each children and that will be delivered

08:39daily basis 10 minutes teacher can just let kids play and um this 10 minutes intervention program we ask

08:48children to children to children teachers to play for um for daily basis and that's that that's the

08:56intervention that we can we can provide you can provide intervention through the games through the

09:02technology at school without going to intervention center or doctors that's that's a very um very good thing

09:12and um breakthrough of our program do you see this being a bridge to especially when you you talked about

09:20how there's a lack of um specialists right especially developmental pediatricians um outside major cities

09:28do you see this as a way to bridge that gap for more equitable and inclusive um interventions to

09:36children who need it outside of kind of major city areas definitely yes and that is our main purpose um i think

09:46the patrioticians um needs is um lack of patriotism is everywhere but especially for those indigenous

09:55communities it is um most likely those children won't have opportunity to see and get proper diagnosis or

10:04screening done by the specialist so we would like to spread out to to um any any um areas of malaysia or

10:15even outside of malaysia shouldn't you you mentioned earlier in your answers uh in your answer in the

10:21beginning of the conversation you said that um you had worked to localize this game um for the malaysian

10:29context and even within malaysia it's not homogeneous right so if you're talking about maybe

10:34more uh rural or indigenous communities it's not the same as somewhere in peninsula malaysia

10:42rural in peninsula malaysia uh than in borneo can we talk a little bit about how you worked to localize your game

10:49yes so we have worked with um university malaya and some way to get um the data from different regions

10:58inclusive uh including uh including east malaysia um and west malaysia and different um states to get um

11:07the right amount of data to um standardize our norm and um yeah and that will make it um

11:17our program to be um to get um national standards okay so you have worked with with people to make sure that

11:27it's tailored for a local context i do have to ask you i mean i was talking to some of my uh friends

11:33who have children who are going through um developmental interventions and they um raised concerns that

11:42you know why would a private company be involved in diagnosing developmental delays um is this is this

11:49innovation um stepping in to fill what is essentially public policy failure and what safeguards do you have

11:56to make sure that the sensitive data that you're collecting isn't misused

12:05true um yeah so i think um that's why we are also working closely with um people like dr amal and also

12:15clinical research center to do um joint research together to make sure that our research is done by

12:28um the national institute or um trusted university um or other institute to make sure that we don't um

12:39measure our impact by ourselves and making sure what we are doing is really really um making the real

12:47impact to the society rather than more going for commercialize and um cherry picking for you know um for

12:56our um sales sake and yeah our commitment from day one is really to to make impact and um we want to learn

13:05from the real um implementation including sarawak or any other place so so yeah that's how how we work

13:14well thank you so much for sharing a little bit about um toy8 and this digital tool appreciate your time

13:20shin matsuzaka there and we're going to take a quick break here on consider this we'll be back with more

13:25on this topic about um early childhood development screening and interventional tools stay tuned we'll be right

13:32bye

Consider This: Children (Part 1) — Innovation in Screening Developmental Delays

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