{"id":15264,"date":"2025-04-03T10:21:44","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T14:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/?p=15264"},"modified":"2025-04-10T13:21:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T17:21:46","slug":"vipo-ai-transforms-parenting-support-with-ai-powered-therapy-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/vipo-ai-transforms-parenting-support-with-ai-powered-therapy-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"Vipo.AI Transforms Parenting Support with AI-Powered Therapy Assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uoDG56CsqUc?si=MWONBweT3bQ7LxEW\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the millions of parents struggling with children&#8217;s behavioral issues, help often seems out of reach. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/profile\/amr-zaid\/\">Amr Zaid<\/a> (Questrom&#8217;26) is working to change that through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/profile\/vipo-ai\/\">Vipo.AI<\/a>, an innovative application that brings professional-level parenting guidance directly to families&#8217; smartphones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;The problem is parents can&#8217;t find ways to help their children,&#8221; explains Amr. &#8220;You probably see kids screaming from the top of their lungs and their parents cannot do anything about it. So they seek psychologists to help them reduce their children&#8217;s behavioral issues.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This challenge is compounded by two significant pressures: the expectations on parents to manage their children&#8217;s behavior, particularly in school settings, and the strain on our healthcare system with insufficient psychological support available for families who need it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amr&#8217;s solution? An AI-powered application trained by child psychologists that provides the same guidance a therapist would deliver, but at a fraction of the cost. The app offers parents two primary features: they can record an actual play session with their child and receive detailed feedback on their positive parenting techniques, or they can practice in a safe, simulated environment with an AI child and AI psychologist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;It&#8217;s more like a game,&#8221; Amr says of the simulation feature. &#8220;You get different levels of how the child could be problematic and how you should deal with them. For example, you have your child in a restaurant who is screaming, and at that moment you have to respond. The AI coaches you on how to respond effectively.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Currently, Vipo.AI is in partnership with UC Davis, working with top psychologists including the head of research to validate the application&#8217;s effectiveness. The team is conducting clinical trials with approximately 50 participants to ensure the application works as intended and causes no harm to children.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amr emphasizes that Vipo.AI isn&#8217;t meant to replace therapists: &#8220;We&#8217;re not replacing therapists, but it&#8217;s more like a tool that helps parents continue practicing the knowledge they learn from therapists. Whether you&#8217;re going to a therapist and trying to practice every day, or you just want to prevent your child from having behavioral issues\u2014it&#8217;s not a replacement.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The need for such a solution is clear. According to Amr&#8217;s research, approximately 47 million people in the US experience some form of parenting challenges, with about 7 million seeking professional therapeutic help.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve never been trained to be parents,&#8221; Amr points out. &#8220;And the fact is, it&#8217;s tough. So you need that easy-to-access application to help you throughout the way.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a finalist in BU&#8217;s New Venture Competition, Amr plans to use any funding to support the clinical trials and reliability testing, ensuring Vipo.AI accurately delivers the same quality guidance a therapist would provide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;The way parenting should be&#8221; isn&#8217;t something we&#8217;re born knowing\u2014but with innovations like Vipo.AI, that knowledge might soon be just a tap away.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff For the millions of parents struggling with children&#8217;s behavioral issues, help often seems out of reach. Amr Zaid (Questrom&#8217;26) is working to change that through Vipo.AI, an innovative application that brings professional-level parenting guidance directly to families&#8217; smartphones. &#8220;The problem is parents can&#8217;t find ways to help their children,&#8221; explains Amr. &#8220;You probably see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23512,"featured_media":15303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[365,106,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23512"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15264"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15297,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15264\/revisions\/15297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}