Mouse

Free software designed for people living with aphasia.

Practice spelling/ typing

Access via mouse or touch screen

Range of categories: social media, text messaging, online shopping, frequently used words

Personalise with own word categories

Collate results across tasks

Choose level of support / difficulty

Text to speech program. Reads text aloud as it is typed so you can listen to what you are typing 

Brief description

• Spelling errors are highlighted and alternative suggestions are given
• Word prediction can be enabled
• Option to hear each word as it's typed or to listen only when a sentence is completed

Who could benefit

People who 

Screen reading software. Take a photo of written text and it will read the text back to you aloud

Brief description

• Available as an app or software

• Choose to hear the text read word by word, line by line or hear the whole text read out

• Speed up/slow down the screen reading voice

Web based suite of exercises designed for cognitive rehabilitation.  Each activity has 2-5 levels of difficulty.

Language activities:

Auditory comprehension (true/fase) tasks, including some very high level activities

Written sequencing tasks where the user is required to put steps for an activity in order (3-16 steps, depending on the level)

Picture-adjective; picture-noun and picture-verb matching activities, including some very high level tasks

Functional, object-location matching tasks

Language based executive functioning activities:

Written decision-making tasks 

Written reasoning of consquences tasks

There are also social cognition tasks including inferring facial expressions & inferring emotional reactions 

Error handling: none

Prompts/cues: none

Record results: yes, and they can be accessed remotely

Free trial: yes, a 10 day trial is available

Comments: Latency is measured for most exercises.  Although a large number of rehab areas are listed, some contain no activities (e.g. expression, naming, fluency, writing). Although reading activities are listed, it is simply matching digits to written numbers. Alot of the exercises rely on very good reading comprehension (e.g. decision making, time estimation, reasoning of consequences, task sequencing). On some activities, the user is unable to amend their response before submitting it (e.g. on task sequencing exercises). 

Suppliers: https://www.neuronup.com/en

6 levels of reading, listening and topic vocabulary exercises for those with moderate to mild reading difficulties who are keen to practise independently

Within each level, there are 10 everyday topics (e.g. making a journey, reading a paper, reading an email, how to lose weight), each with 6 different exercise sets

Web based program - exercises can be allocated remotely & results can be accessed by the SLT remotely

The clinician purchases a yearly license and patients have free access to the software on a computer or via an app on a tablet or phone device

The software is designed for learners of English as a foreign language but can be useful for people with aphasia

20 pre-recorded scripts (10 basic and 10 more advanced) are provided for the person with aphasia to practice.  

The SLT can also record personalised scripts using Aphasia scripts editor software which are then downloaded onto the person with aphasia's  player version of the software at home.

First, the user listens to the whole conversation; second the user practices each sentence of the conversation repeatedly; and third, the entire conversation is rehearsed in turn-taking with the virtual therapist.  There is a play back option so the person with aphasia can listen back to their performance.

Program: Aphasia therapy online

Type of exercises:

• listening (auditory/word matching, auditory/picture matching, spell a spoken word, auditory letter discrimination)
• reading (single words & short phrases, matching upper/lower case letters, answering simple, written Y/N questions, auditory letter discrimination)
• spelling (picture naming & spelling spoken words)
• written picture naming, spoken picture naming

Access: keyboard & mouse

Developed with SLT: yes

Theory based: no

Record own speaking attempts: no

Correction of own speaking attempts: no

Number of exercises: several levels and 40-50 items per exercise

Easy to use? yes

Customisation/personalisation: no

Error handling: only 1 error is allowed before answer is given, to prevent errorful learning 

Prompts/cues given: initial letter/semantic cue, can limit word length

Record results: no

Tutorials: no

Free trial: program is free

Support: from the SLT who developed it

Comments: user must make own judgement of whether spoken naming was correct. No spoken models are provided to make this judgment

Languages: In addition to English, this resource is available in both European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese - either the therapy tasks or the entire website as preferred.

Picture naming tasks where the person can record their own spoken attempt

Spoken word to picture matching. Written word is also presented.

Click Yes or No to say if the word matches the picture.

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: No, based on clinician experience

Record own speaking attempts: N/A

Correction of own speaking attempts: N/A

Easy to use?: Yes but can be confusing because sometimes when you click on 'No', the computer says 'Yes' as the reward for a correct response.

Customisation/personalisation: No

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: None

Record results: Yes

Tutorials: Yes, online

Free trial: Yes but not the complete program

Support: Via Livechat or the suppliers can take over the user’s PC. All support takes place 9am-5pm New York time.

Comments:

• The online subscription allows access to all the modules available so as the user progresses they don’t need to purchase new modules. It feels like an app when downloaded on an ipad
• The CD version has more functions than the internet version
• Remote access to results is possible as long as the SLT has the user’s login & password.

N.B:
    
    Voice is American and computer generated
    No visual rewards for correct answers
 

Supplier: http://www.parrotsoftware.com