Patent Pending · U.S. 64/016,001

Stuttering is a
timing problem.
Now it's measurable.

OpenMic runs a multi-layer acoustic engine on every syllable you speak — real-time signal analysis, speech recognition, and weighted scoring that measures pre-articulatory instability before the block happens. In any browser.

$19 / month or $179 / year · cancel anytime · works in any browser

OpenMic — live

Subscribe — $19 / mo View Capabilities Deck → SLP Clinical Dashboard → $179 / yr · cancel anytime
✓  HIPAA-compliant by architecture — no PHI created, collected, or stored. Audio processed anonymously with no retention.

OpenMic

A browser-based speech fluency console. OpenMic listens through your microphone and runs a layered analysis pipeline — acoustic feature extraction, speech recognition, and weighted scoring — producing a per-syllable fluency profile in real time, session over session.

📊

Per-syllable scoring

Blocks, prolongations, and repetitions detected from the audio signal — not self-report. Every syllable scored for acoustic stability across multiple analysis layers.

📄

Teleprompter mode

Practice any text. Words advance as you speak. The scoring engine runs in parallel on every word.

📈

Multi-session comparison

Session history, trend lines, and per-word scoring maps that update every session.

📷

Camera mirror

Your camera stays on while you speak so you can watch your own delivery in real time.

🌐

Any language

Language-agnostic acoustic engine with cloud-based speech recognition. Supports dozens of languages and regional variants.

Subscribe — $19 / mo $179 / yr · cancel anytime
OpenMic · Session 14 · Engine v10
The
PAD 97
presentation
PAD 91
b-b-begins ⚑
PAD 42
at
PAD 96
t———en ⚑
PAD 37
o'clock
PAD 89
Session PAD
2 events · syllable-weighted
74

Three layers.
One score.

OpenMic doesn't run a single algorithm on your speech. It runs a layered analysis pipeline — three independent systems that each see different things in the audio signal. Their outputs converge through weighted scoring into a single per-syllable fluency score. That score is what you see. The layers underneath are what make it trustworthy enough to track progress over time.

U.S. Provisional 64/016,001 · Filed March 24, 2026
DFS

Acoustic Analysis

The Disfluency Feature Stream runs at ~60 frames per second directly on the audio signal. Every frame is classified — silent, building, or voiced — producing a continuous stream of acoustic features: intensity, onset count, voiced duration, block detection. This is the raw measurement layer. No transcription, no interpretation — just signal.

SR

Speech Recognition

A cloud-based speech recognition layer operates independently from DFS. It returns what was said — phoneme identity, phoneme-level accuracy scores, word boundaries, and timing. Where DFS tells you how the speech sounded acoustically, SR tells you what was produced linguistically. Two independent verdicts on the same utterance.

PAD

Per-Syllable Score

DFS features and SR output converge through a weighted scoring layer with defined, calibrated weights. The result is a single per-syllable fluency score — the PAD score — that reflects acoustic stability, articulatory accuracy, and timing. This is what the speaker sees. The layers underneath are what make session-over-session comparison reliable.

Microphone DFS · 60fps + SR · cloud Scoring Weights PAD Score

What the engine measures per syllable

Voice onset time (VOT)
Formant trajectories (F1, F2)
Fundamental frequency variability (F0)
Pre-speech silence duration
Amplitude contour and RMS intensity
Per-phoneme identity and accuracy
Block, prolongation, and repetition detection
Onset count and restart patterns

Why two upstream layers matter

DFS and SR see different things. DFS detects that something acoustically unstable happened — a repeated onset, an intensity spike, a voiced duration anomaly. SR detects that the phoneme produced didn't match the target, or that a word was repeated. When both layers flag the same syllable, the scoring confidence is high. When they disagree, the system surfaces the disagreement for clinical review.

Two independent signals → weighted convergence → one score per syllable

This is what makes progress tracking reliable. The score isn't one algorithm's opinion — it's the convergence of two.

Each session produces a six-axis profile — Pressure Reduction, Anxiety Reduction, Ground Strength, Fluency Rate, Session Consistency, and Phoneme Range. Stacked across sessions, the shape shows longitudinal trajectory. Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom.

ILLUSTRATIVE DATA · NO CLINICAL CLAIMS Open full screen ↗

The games

Eight voice-driven practice modes, all running on the same layered engine. Each targets a different aspect of speech-motor control. Microphone and browser only — no downloads.

🌈

Rainbow Syllables

Full phrases
Phrase fluency
How to play

Choose a phrase. Press the mic. Speak naturally. Syllable blobs light up in real time — blue for soft, green for medium, orange for loud. Your fluency score shows after each round. Difficulty adjusts automatically.

Why this works
SLP Technique

Easy onset and prolonged speech are among the most widely used fluency shaping techniques. Rainbow Syllables operationalizes these by requiring sustained, controlled voicing across an entire phrase.

Neuroscience

Phrase-level production exercises the full basal ganglia–thalamocortical loop. Each syllable requires the putamen to gate the next motor plan in sequence.

🌉

Sound Bridge

Sound transitions
Coarticulation
How to play

Two sounds appear on screen. Say both without breaking your voice between them. 28 sound pairs across four difficulty levels. Start easy, work up.

Why this works
SLP Technique

Continuous phonation and coarticulation drills are standard in fluency therapy. Sound Bridge isolates the exact moment where voicing breaks down — the transition between two sounds.

Neuroscience

Coarticulation is controlled by the premotor cortex. Sound Bridge directly trains feedforward control described in the DIVA model of speech production.

⛰️

Summit

Challenge words
Avoidance reduction
How to play

Type your scariest word. Hit start. Say it. Say it again. Watch your score climb and the climber rise with each repetition. The word that felt impossible becomes the word you've said fifty times.

Why this works
SLP Technique

Avoidance reduction therapy (Sheehan) and voluntary stuttering (Van Riper) are foundational. Summit applies structured exposure — confront feared words through repetition until the emotional charge diminishes.

Neuroscience

Word-specific fear activates the amygdala, which modulates the basal ganglia gating system. Repeated voluntary production reduces the amygdala's threat response, stabilizing downstream motor gating.

🎯

Articulation Trainer

Effort visualization
Effort monitoring
How to play

Pick a word from the bank or type your own. Tap Speak and say it naturally. Each sound slot lights up in sequence — blue means it passed, red means it detected repeated attempts or high effort. Aim for all green. Less effort = better score.

Why this works
SLP Technique

Effort monitoring and proprioceptive awareness are core to fluency shaping. Articulation Trainer makes effort visible — showing which articulators are over-engaged and teaching minimal-pressure production.

Neuroscience

Stuttering blocks involve excessive co-contraction of antagonist muscles at the articulatory level. Per-phoneme effort visualization provides biofeedback on motor overflow patterns that traditional therapy relies on clinician observation to detect.

🥁

Rhythm Pad

Volume control
Motor precision
How to play

Pads appear with a target volume zone. Make a sound and land in the zone. Green = nailed it. Difficulty increases as you improve. Three modes: hold, alternate, and burst.

Why this works
SLP Technique

Motor learning principles — specificity of practice, distributed practice, variable practice. Rhythm Pad trains proprioceptive control through volume targeting.

Neuroscience

Volume regulation targets the M1 orofacial region and cerebellar-cortical coordination for sound intensity mapping.

🎵

Cadence

Speech rhythm
Rhythm & timing
How to play

Watch the beat indicator. When it hits the zone, make your sound. Start slow, speed up. The game scores how close you land to each beat.

Why this works
SLP Technique

Rhythmic cueing is used clinically to externalize the timing signal that the basal ganglia typically provides internally — reducing the system's dependence on a disrupted internal clock.

Neuroscience

External rhythm engages the supplementary motor area via the cerebellum, providing an alternative timing pathway when the basal ganglia–SMA loop is dysregulated.

🫧

Bubble Hunt

Precision under pressure
Amplitude + timing
How to play

Watch bubbles move in wave patterns. When one enters the green zone, make a sound at the right volume. Miss the zone and it floats away. Speed changes as you level up.

Why this works
SLP Technique

Dual-task practice — producing controlled speech while tracking a moving target — trains attention resource management, building resilience against the cognitive load that exacerbates disfluency in real conversation.

Neuroscience

Simultaneous visuomotor tracking and vocal output engages prefrontal executive control alongside the speech-motor circuit, training the system to perform under divided attention.

Extend your sessions.

Stuttering changes in the time between sessions — not just during them. OpenMic gives your clients an independent practice tool and gives you the session data to see what changed.

Assign and review

Share OpenMic with clients. Review per-syllable session data, trend lines, and challenge-word Pressure maps between appointments.

Multi-session analytics

Session-over-session PAD scores, disfluency event logs, and per-word history. Data export in CSV.

SLP Clinical Dashboard

Caseload management, session-over-session progress tracking, per-phoneme analysis, and a six-axis clinical outcome profile — all from the engine's scoring output.

View clinical dashboard ↗

Platform partnerships

Integrating the OpenMic engine inside your platform or product? B2B licensing and white-label arrangements available. Contact for scope and pricing.

Research access

Protocol FP-PILOT-001 · IRB track active. Contact for research partnership inquiries.

Signal architecture walkthrough

Full four-level resolution breakdown — session, word, syllable, phoneme — with the complete OpenMic signal record. For clinical and technical partners.

View capabilities deck ↗
✓  HIPAA-compliant by architecture — no PHI created, collected, or stored. Audio processed anonymously with no retention.
Individual
OpenMic Pass
$19 /mo
$179 / year  ·  save 21%
OpenMic console
PAD scoring — every session
Cancel anytime
Clinical & Enterprise
SLP — OpenMic / PAD Engine
$99 /seat/mo
$990 / seat / year  ·  save 17%
OpenMic console + PAD engine
Per-session scoring, clinical export
One seat per licensed SLP
Enterprise & Research
OpenMic / PAD Engine
Platform integration, white-label
Contact
Research / IRB
Protocol FP-PILOT-001 · IRB track active
Contact

The pre-articulatory window.

Where stuttering begins

Research by Per Alm and others locates the neurological origin of stuttering in the basal ganglia–SMA timing loop — not at articulation, but in pre-articulatory motor planning. The motor plan fails before the mouth moves.

Most speech therapy tools measure at or after articulation. OpenMic's engine targets the pre-articulatory window acoustically, treating voice onset time and formant stability as proxies for what happened upstream in the planning circuit.

IFG
Pre-SMA
SMA
Putamen
Thalamus
M1

The engine targets instability at the Pre-SMA → SMA gate.

Word history over phonetic complexity

Phonetic complexity doesn't predict stuttering frequency. Word-specific neural history does. A simple word spoken hundreds of times with a stutter carries a conditioned motor planning burden that a complex novel word doesn't.

OpenMic tracks per-word scoring across sessions. The scoring map shows which words are stabilizing — and which aren't.

fNIRS pathway

FluentPlay is in initial discussions with NIRx about developing a wearable fNIRS protocol for pre-SMA hemodynamic monitoring during speech planning tasks.

Status: early-stage, contingent on equipment funding

No active protocol is underway. If this work proceeds, PAD scores will be compared against fNIRS-measured pre-SMA activation, with the goal of validating PAD as a non-invasive proxy for a neural biomarker — which would enable clinical trial endpoints without neuroimaging infrastructure.

Browser-side audio pipeline

Every game shares the same audio engine. The microphone feeds a real-time analysis pipeline — the DFS runs at approximately 60 frames per second, classifying every frame into a disfluency feature stream. A parallel cloud-based speech recognition layer provides phoneme-level accuracy. Both streams converge into the scoring layer. No audio is recorded. Nothing is stored.

View pipeline walkthrough ↗

HIPAA & data architecture

FluentPlay is HIPAA-compliant by architecture. No personally identifiable or protected health information is created, collected, or stored at any layer. Audio is processed in real time through cloud-based speech recognition with no retention. No accounts or identifiers are required to use OpenMic.

IRB pilot

Protocol FP-PILOT-001 · IRB track active. Research partnership inquiries welcome — contact below.

Built by someone who stutters.

Will Carbone is the founder of FluentPlay Technologies. He's stuttered since childhood. Before FluentPlay, he spent more than a decade inside clinical and commercial biotech — building, monitoring, and stress-testing the systems that take drug molecules from synthesis to verified purity. Extraction, purification, analytical measurement, quality control from bench to commercial scale. The discipline of making invisible things legible through rigorous data.

When he looked at what existed for people who stutter, he found tools that hadn't kept pace with the neuroscience. The research was clear: stuttering is a timing problem rooted in pre-articulatory motor planning. The tools treated it as something else.

He left biotech and built the measurement instrument the field was missing.

FluentPlay Technologies LLC · Somerville, MA
willcarbone@fluentplaytech.com

For clinicians,
partners, and researchers.

Research / IRB

Protocol FP-PILOT-001 · IRB track active.
Contact for research partnership inquiries.

Platform & Enterprise

Engine licensing, white-label deployments, and enterprise agreements handled directly. No RFPs — just a conversation.