For many families, the journey to an autism diagnosis begins with a quiet worry—a toddler who isn’t talking yet, a pediatrician who shares their concern, and then a waitlist that stretches six, twelve, sometimes even twenty-four months. In that time, the most powerful window for early intervention can slip away.

EarliPoint Health exists to change that trajectory. Built on more than a decade of peer-reviewed science and FDA-cleared eye-tracking technology, the company offers clinicians a faster, more objective way to assess social, language, and developmental patterns beginning as early as 16 months. The goal is simple but transformative: shorten the path to answers, and give families access to care when it can make the greatest difference.

Venture Investors Health Fund has supported EarliPoint through this evolution, recognizing both the scientific rigor behind the platform and the practical impact it can have on children, families, and clinicians across the country.

At the helm of this work is Jamie Pagliaro, EarliPoint’s President and CEO, whose career spans classrooms, clinical programs, and nearly two decades of leadership at the intersection of autism services and technology. Jamie brings a deep understanding of the challenges families face and a clear vision for how objective, biomarker-based insights can reshape the entire care journey—not just the moment of diagnosis.

In this Q&A, Jamie shares how his early experiences shaped his career, what drew him to EarliPoint, and where he sees the most meaningful innovation ahead. For anyone interested in how data and compassion can come together to improve children’s lives, his perspective is well worth reading.

You’ve dedicated your career to autism and developmental disabilities, from classroom to clinical settings. What inspired you to devote your career to this field?

JP: I actually started college as an art history major but realized it might be tough to find a job in that field. I pivoted to psychology—another area not necessarily known for easy employment—and decided to find a related job or internship. I saw a posting in the psych library for a role as an ABA therapist for a little boy with autism.

At the time, my only reference point for autism was the movie Rain Man, and I had no idea what ABA therapy was. But I’d spent summers as a camp counselor and tennis instructor, loved working with kids, and thought, “How hard could this be?”

It turned out to be very challenging. This little boy had limited communication, behavioral challenges, and didn’t easily engage. Over a three-year period, though, with a team of people like me guided by a clinician, he made steady progress. By the time I graduated, he was in a first-grade classroom with no special-education supports.

At the time, I don’t think I fully appreciated what a remarkable trajectory that represented for him and his family. But it was enough to make me realize we’d done something life-changing. To this day, I still keep in touch with him—he’s now in his early 30s, went to college and grad school, works full-time, and recently moved to Australia. That early experience was what set me on this path.

Was there a moment that shaped your belief that technology could accelerate impact in autism care?

JP: Yes. When I started working in the late ’90s, computers were just starting to show up in offices. I was always drawn to building systems and processes—tracking assessments, developing curricula, setting up tools for classrooms and group homes.

In the early 2000s, I moved to New York City and opened the first charter school for children with autism. We were still doing everything manually—paper, pencil, spreadsheets. I connected with a professor at SUNY Binghamton who was experimenting with data collection on Palm Pilots. It sounds quaint now, but at the time it was revolutionary. It automated the process so teachers could spend more time with students rather than charting data after hours.

That experience got me thinking about scale. Every year, our school had hundreds of families applying for only a few available spots. We started wondering how we could make our methods accessible to more parents, teachers, and caregivers. We were already using videos to train staff, so we thought, What if we could put this content online?

I got a small grant from the state to digitize our materials, but it wasn’t enough to get far. Around that time, I met two entrepreneurs—one from investment banking, one from tech—who understood the growing demand for autism services. Together we launched RethinkFirst, which became a 16-year journey taking an idea from nothing to a $100 million-plus SaaS company.

What drew you to EarliPoint Health?

JP: As of today, I’m 93 days in—and yes, I’m counting! Time matters in this role because every day counts for the families waiting for answers.

What compelled me most about EarliPoint is the urgency of its mission. We have technology capable of identifying children at risk for autism as early as 16 months old, yet the average diagnosis age in the U.S. is still between four and five years. That gap is due to systemic bottlenecks and limited access to specialists.

So there’s both a business urgency and a moral one. Every minute we shorten those wait times matters. I wake up thinking about the families still waiting and how we can get more devices and licenses out there faster.

The company recently rebranded from EarliTec Diagnostics to EarliPoint Health. What does this change represent?

JP: The rebrand reflects how we’re expanding beyond diagnosis to support the entire care journey.

One of the things that drew me to EarliPoint was that the technology goes further than a diagnostic report—it also captures developmental scales across social, verbal, and nonverbal learning abilities.
Today, autism prevalence continues to rise, and while insurance coverage for therapies like ABA has expanded, care is expensive—often $50,000 to $100,000 a year—and progress is difficult to measure objectively. Most outcomes rely on observation and subjective assessments.

Eye-gaze biomarkers offer a more objective way to measure developmental change. My mandate to the team from day one was to position EarliPoint as a guide through the entire care journey. Diagnosis is essential, but it’s only the first step. Parents ultimately want progress, not just a label.

Can you briefly walk us through how a child is assessed with EarliPoint—and what makes it different from traditional diagnostic tools?

JP: Traditional assessments involve a developmental pediatrician or psychologist spending three to six hours with a child, running checklists and interviews, and relying on clinical judgment. Because of provider shortages, families often wait six to 24 months for those evaluations. That delay means many children miss the critical early-intervention window before age three, when outcomes are strongest.

With EarliPoint, a child simply sits in front of a tablet with embedded eye-tracking technology that captures up to 120 data points per second. The child watches twelve one-minute videos showing social interactions.

Typically developing children look at the same regions of interest—faces, hands, shared toys—about 80% of the time. Children with autism tend to focus elsewhere: on lighting, background objects, or patterns. The system compares each child’s visual-attention data with a large reference model of typically developing peers and generates both a diagnostic aid and developmental scales for social, language, and nonverbal learning abilities.

Two large multi-site clinical trials, published in JAMA (2023), validated the model against gold-standard assessments and led to FDA clearance of the device.

Do you have a real-world example of EarliPoint changing a family’s trajectory?

JP: Yes—one story from my first weeks as CEO really stayed with me.

We’d just onboarded a new customer, and during the call, one of their team members said, “You don’t know this, but EarliPoint has already helped my family.” He explained that his sister in Missouri had a two-year-old son whose pediatrician shared developmental concerns. The earliest evaluation she could schedule was 24 months out.

While researching alternatives, she found a clinic using “retinal scans” for autism—which turned out to be a misunderstanding of our eye-tracking technology. She went the next week, the assessment confirmed a diagnosis, and her son started therapy immediately.

All summer, she sent her brother videos of her son talking and interacting. He told me, “In an alternate universe, he’d still just be waiting.” That’s the kind of impact we’re working to multiply.

What broader trends in healthcare innovation are you most excited about right now?

JP: I’m excited about bringing objective, scalable, biomarker-based data into behavioral health. In most areas of medicine, we have clear metrics—blood pressure, lab results, imaging. But in behavioral health, progress is often measured by self-report or observation.

There’s tremendous opportunity to apply data science and precision measurement to conditions like autism. Beyond our current device, we’re developing a broader platform layer to support other diagnostic and treatment innovations that help behavioral-health providers deliver more efficient, outcome-oriented care.

Venture Investors Health Fund has supported EarliPoint for several years. How has the firm helped beyond capital?

JP: Two words come to mind: relationships and counsel. When I first met Jim Adox and Jenni Le, it was clear they cared about the impact of our technology—not just financial results. They lead with relationship and mission, which really resonated with me.

They’ve also been tremendous advisors. I know I can reach out with a question, whether I’m preparing for a board meeting or navigating a strategic decision, and they’ll respond quickly with insights drawn from their experience across multiple portfolio companies. That perspective is invaluable.

They also actively engage in board discussions and help champion our direction. I couldn’t ask for better partners.

What’s next for EarliPoint Health?

JP: The next year is all about commercial growth. A lot has already been invested in the science and engineering behind this technology. I often joke that when I arrived, it was like being handed a beautifully designed race car sitting in the garage—now it’s time to take it out on the road.

For Halloween, I even dressed up as a race-car driver during our company meeting to make the point: it’s time to accelerate. Not just revenue, but impact. We need to get this technology out into the world to create more stories like the one I mentioned.

If there’s one thing you wish every policymaker, payer, or parent understood about early diagnosis, what would it be?

JP: Diagnosis isn’t the end of the story—it’s the beginning of the journey.

Early diagnosis is critical because the earlier a child accesses care, the better the outcomes. But we also need shared “measuring sticks” for progress so parents, payers, and providers can all see the value of that care. That’s where EarliPoint can help transform not just diagnosis, but the entire care continuum.

Learn more about EarliPoint at earlipointhealth.com.
Note: This interview was lightly edited for readability.