The benefits of Sylva
For commissioners assessing needs-based profiling in 2026
The short version
Sylva's profile draws on more than 65 published, scientifically validated questionnaires, selected by age band and repeatable over time.
These are not scales we invented. That single design decision is what makes everything below credible: a profile built from published instruments inherits their psychometric evidence. A bespoke rating scale inherits nothing.
What the profiling module actually is
Screening and profiling are two of Sylva's six registered device functions, not features added to a chat product. The approved intended purpose covers three things:
- ·Screen for autism, ADHD, and associated differential and co-occurring conditions using age-appropriate, scientifically validated questionnaires
- ·Produce a strengths-and-needs-based profile
- ·Track outcomes using scientifically validated instruments
Two clinical claims register entries underpin this. CL-08 covers screening and defines the instrument scope. CL-10 covers profiling, stating that Sylva produces a strengths-and-needs-based profile synthesising screening results and user-reported context to inform personalised support.
What the module measures
| Domain | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Autism and ADHD screening | Across age bands from preschool to adult |
| Differential and co-occurring conditions | Depression, generalised anxiety, OCD, panic disorder, pathological demand avoidance, separation anxiety, social anxiety, masking, sensory processing, dyslexia, dyspraxia, school refusal, sleep disturbance, alexithymia, tic disorders, PTSD, complex PTSD, intellectual development, selective mutism |
| Carer and child outcomes | Parental stress, parenting confidence, child behaviour and emotional wellbeing, child quality of life |
Benefit-by-benefit
| Benefit | Psychometric basis | What the module delivers |
|---|---|---|
| Support without a diagnosis | Content validity, criterion validity | 65+ validated instruments across all three domains. No referral, no waitlist, no diagnosis required. Available from the day a family experiences difficulty, not the day a clinic calls. |
| Consistent answers regardless of location | Inter-rater agreement, measurement invariance | Administration follows each instrument's published rules, completed by the parent or carer, not a staff member working from a two-hour training session. Invariance evidence sits in the instrument's own published literature. |
| Support that steps down as well as up | Test-retest reliability, minimal detectable change | Repeat administration on the same construct is a registered function, not a workaround. Families see movement over time rather than a single point estimate of a moving target. |
| Parents stop having to prove deficit | Structural validity | Scores come from instruments with published factor structures. A total score means what its authors demonstrated it means, which is what lets it carry weight the parent previously had to carry alone. |
| Knowing whether support worked | Responsiveness | Outcome tracking using validated instruments is registered function 5. Post-market clinical follow-up measures six validated instruments at baseline, four, eight, and 12 weeks against a target of 134 comp |
| A population view worth having | All of the above, plus published factor structure | Structured scores from published instruments aggregate. Free text and untested rating scales do not. Exports to commissioning partners carry the user's own recorded data and validated instrument scores. |
| Strengths, not only shortfalls | Content validity | The registered output is a strengths-and-needs-based profile. A tool that only counts deficits produces the deficit-framed practice that neurodivergent advocates are right to challenge. |
Who completes it, and why that matters for SEND
The registered intended user is a parent, carer, or any professional working with a child or young person. Children and young people aged 2–18 are indirect beneficiaries rather than device users, within domestic and community settings. Sylva is not intended to serve as a sole clinical decision-making tool.
SEND reforms consistently emphasise recognising parents as expert partners in their children's care. Sylva reflects this by being the only instrument in this space where the parent owns the profile, completes it according to published administration rules, and retains control over sharing it.
When Sylva is deployed via a local authority, Integrated Care Board (ICB), or assessment provider, the user provides consent before their record is exported. All prioritisation, triage, and scheduling decisions remain the independent responsibility of the commissioning partner under their own clinical governance obligations, including DCB0160 where applicable.
Two practical consequences follow:
- ·The inter-rater reliability issues that often undermine staff-completed rating scales are avoided, since the rater remains constant and uses a published instrument.
- ·The setting receives a ready-made profile without having to generate it, avoiding the added administrative burden the reform might otherwise create.
Important: Sylva's outputs inform clinical management rather than drive it. The module does not generate severity ratings, priority scores, need-level classifications, or risk-stratification signals. Sylva does not transmit results to any third party. If a score meets an instrument's threshold, the user may receive general information on seeking a full assessment. This is framed strictly as a screening indication rather than a diagnosis, and it involves no automated referrals, data sharing, or provider matching.
What the profile drives
A profile that sits in a folder changes nothing. In Sylva, the profile personalises what comes next: five coaching specialisms delivering the active ingredients of the best-evidenced approaches, spanning modalities no single practitioner is trained across.
| Specialism | Scope |
|---|---|
| Parenting coaching | Day-to-day family life: mornings, meltdowns, bedtimes |
| Inner child coaching | The user's own reactions and the patterns behind them |
| Self-help coaching | Staying calm and steady when things feel overwhelming |
| Relationship coaching | Communicating and reconnecting with a partner or co-parent |
| ADHD coaching | Living with ADHD: time, routines, and staying on top of things |
The parenting coaching outputs have been evaluated by experienced NHS clinical practitioners and published in a peer-reviewed paper (Brown et al. 2026, Scientific Reports). The evaluation instrument, scoring, and results are held in the clinical evaluation report as evidence and are not restated as a performance claim.
Why the regulatory position matters
Sylva names who it is for. That puts Sylva inside the definition of a medical device in Great Britain. Most products in this space stay deliberately vague to stay out of scope. It is cheaper in the short term.
The consequence is specific: being in scope is why needs-based profiles are built from scientifically validated questionnaires rather than questions Sylva wrote itself. That is not a preference that could be quietly dropped under commercial pressure. It is a condition of being allowed to sell.
Standards compliance:
- ·Risk management: ISO 14971, 24971, 34971
- ·Software lifecycle: IEC 62304, TIR45
- ·Usability engineering: IEC 62366-1
- ·Quality management: ISO 13485
- ·Information security: ISO 27001:2022
- ·Clinical risk: DCB0129 (named clinical safety officer)
- ·Safeguarding: named designated safeguarding lead
- ·DTAC: met across all five domains, with DPIA, ICO registration, and primary data storage on the user's own device
For assurance teams: the technical file, risk management file, GDPR file, and DTAC file already exist in the form your process requires. They are not documents that would be built once you asked.