An SLP, a data scientist, and a strawberry.

Our story

I’m Lauren, a speech-language pathologist and the founder of Fruitful SLP. My husband, Connor, is a data scientist, and this platform grew out of both my experience in virtual therapy and our personal story.

I began my career as an SLP in 2021 and transitioned into virtual speech therapy in August 2023. I served multiple Tennessee schools in a fully virtual setting. As my caseload grew to more than 60 students, I did what many school-based SLPs do and grouped 2 to 4 students together so each of them could keep progressing toward their IEP goals. That was difficult, especially with the lack of materials built for it.

In May 2024, I started creating digital speech therapy materials on Boom Learning under the name Lauren Christine. Seeing other SLPs connect with those materials encouraged me to think bigger. With my background as an SLP and Connor’s background in data science, we were able to start bringing Fruitful SLP to life.

Why we built it

Fruitful SLP came from a problem I experienced every day in virtual therapy. It was hard to find online resources that were both engaging for students and effective in small groups where every student had different goals. Some platforms had interactive games, but they only allowed one shared skill or target for the whole group. Others had stronger therapy exercises, but they were not engaging enough to consistently hold students’ attention. On top of that, there was no reliable way to make sure each student was getting exercises that matched their individual speech or language goals during their turn.

This created a constant tension between meeting each student’s individual IEP goals, keeping sessions engaging, and managing therapy in a way that felt realistic and sustainable. I wanted a better way to run virtual therapy, especially for small groups. My goal was to create a platform where SLPs could use shared activities while still selecting individualized targets for each student within the same session.

For example, one student might be working on conflict resolution in pragmatic language, another on vocalic /r/ at the phrase level, and another on vocabulary through context clues, all within the same game or session. That ability to support individualized targets within shared small-group activities is really at the heart of what makes Fruitful SLP different. It is especially built for group sessions, but it works well for individual sessions too.

My hope is that Fruitful SLP helps virtual therapy feel less scattered and more intentional. I want it to give SLPs a place where they can support each student’s goals without constantly jumping between different websites and resources. More than anything, I want it to make therapy more engaging for students and more manageable for the SLPs leading it.