What SpanNova is, and what it isn’t

SpanNova turns what you already know about a learner with special needs — plus their IEP, ISP, medical records and evaluations — into a portable AI profile. It is a structured file that describes how that person communicates, what helps them, what sets them off, and what they are working toward. You keep the file and hand it to whichever AI tool you use, so the tool understands your learner from the first message instead of starting from zero.

Nothing stops you from explaining your child to ChatGPT. The problem is that you have to do it again in every new chat, on every tool, forever — and under pressure you leave things out. SpanNova is not a competing chatbot. It builds the context those tools are missing, once, in a structured form, so the explaining is done and it travels with your child.

No. SpanNova never talks to your child. It produces a document you give to the AI tools your family already uses. That is a deliberate design decision: an AI that talks directly to a vulnerable learner carries risks we are not willing to take on, and it would mean asking families to adopt yet another app.

A file you download — a structured profile containing a complete system instruction plus the underlying profile data. You paste or upload it into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or a school Chromebook. It is yours: no subscription is required to keep using a profile you have already exported.

No. Your profile is saved as a file on your device. SpanNova does not operate a database of children's health or education records. Signing in stores three things: your email, which plan you are on, and a random ID per learner slot. The profile itself never reaches our servers. Separately, if you ask for beta access we keep the name and email you typed into that form so we can contact you — contact details you chose to give us, never a child's record. Separately, if you ask for beta access we keep the name and email you typed into that form so we can contact you — contact details you chose to give us, never a child's record.

The answers you type are sent to Anthropic's API to generate the text, the same way any AI product works, and the result comes back to your browser. SpanNova does not keep a copy. The one exception worth stating plainly: content that Anthropic's automated systems flag for trust and safety review may be retained under Anthropic's usage policies.

SpanNova is not a covered entity under HIPAA, so 'compliant' is not the right word and we will not claim it. What is true: the product is built around the same categories of sensitive health information HIPAA protects, and handled with that seriousness — medication timing and safety context flow into the profile you export and are not retained afterward.

Quick Start is free, needs no account, and takes about five minutes — it produces a starter profile. The Complete Profile, which parses IEP and ISP documents and builds the full lifespan-aware profile, requires an account plus either a beta invitation or a subscription — it is in limited beta and free for testers while that runs. Individual covers one learner; Family covers three.

Yes. An IEP or ISP speeds things up because SpanNova can parse it, but it is not required. If you have no documents ready, you answer questions about diagnoses, communication, interests, safety needs and goals instead. Plenty of families arrive before a formal evaluation, or between them.

Both. The same profile engine spans IFSP through IEP through ISP — early intervention, school age, and adulthood. There is a separate adult path written for self-advocates and for the caregivers and day programs supporting them. Most tools in this space stop working the moment a child ages out of school; that gap is the reason SpanNova exists.

No. It does not diagnose, does not recommend treatment, and does not generate clinical conclusions. It describes a learner using information you provide and documents you already have, so that an AI tool can respond appropriately. It is a context layer, not a clinician.

Yes, and that is often the point. A family exports the profile and shares it with the people who work with their learner, so a new aide in September starts with the context that took years to build rather than a blank page.

That is a reasonable position and worth taking seriously. Two things may help: the profile lives on your device rather than in our database, and the sensitive sections are explicit and reviewable before anything is generated, so you see exactly what leaves your hands. If that is still not enough, Quick Start asks for far less and requires no account.