MORA: AI-Mediated Story-Based practice for Speech Sound Disorder from Clinic to Home

Abstract

Speech sound disorder is among the most common communication challenges in preschool children. Home-based practice is essential for effective therapy and for acquiring generalization of target sounds, yet sustaining engaging and consistent practice remains difficult. Existing story-based activities, despite their potential for sound generalization and educational benefits, are often underutilized due to limited interactivity. Moreover, many practice tools fail to sufficiently integrate speech-language pathologists into the process, resulting in weak alignment with clinical treatment plans. To address these limitations, we present MORA, an interactive story-based practice system. MORA introduces three key innovations. First, it embeds target sounds and vocabulary into dynamic, character-driven conversational narratives, requiring children to actively produce speech to progress the story, thereby creating natural opportunities for exposure, repetition, and generalization. Second, it provides visual cues, explicit instruction, and feedback, allowing children to practice effectively either independently or with caregivers. Third, it supports an AI-in-the-loop workflow, enabling SLPs to configure target materials, review logged speech with phoneme-level scoring, and adapt therapy plans asynchronously -- bridging the gap between clinic and home practice while respecting professional expertise. A formative study with six licensed SLPs informed the system's design rationale, and an expert review with seven SLPs demonstrated strong alignment with established articulation-based treatments, as well as potential to enhance children's engagement and literacy. Furthermore, discussions highlight the design considerations for professional support and configurability, adaptive and multimodal child interaction, while highlighting MORA's broader applicability across speech and language disorders.