Mouse

Type of exercises:

• Word or sentence level speaking.
• Spoken conversation phrases
• Describing pictures
• Answering Yes/No questions
• Turning statements into questions

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: No

Record own speaking attempts: Yes

Correction of own speaking attempts: No

Customisation/personalisation: Yes. Can modify the exercises provided or create your own. Opportunity to create exercises around specific sounds, not just words and phrases

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: Written model, spoken model, written cues, can provide own for customised exercises

Tutorials: No

Free trial: Yes

Support: Free lifetime technical support via phone, email or online livechat

Comments: Can customise or modify exercises so can use an alternative accent

N.B:
    Exercises provided are Americanised

Type of exercises:

• Associations
• Relationships
• Odd one out
• Classification/categorisation
• Opposites
• Synonyms (words that mean the same)
• Homonyms (words that sound the same)
• Elimination (finding something by what it isn’t)

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: Based on SLT experience & traditional paper exercises

Record own speaking attempts: N/A

Correction of own speaking attempts: N/A

Customisation/personalisation: No

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: None

Tutorials: Yes

Free trial: Yes

Support: Free lifetime technical support via phone, email or online livechat

Comments:

• Wide range of different semantic exercises. Most require auditory comprehension. Only the very basic odd one out & association exercises don’t.
• Exercise complexity increases by providing more semantically similar distractors
• Some exercises on adjectives and prepositions
• All exercises have a picture and written word version so they cater for anyone wishing to work on semantics whether they can read or not
• This program can be purchased as a monthly subscription which gives access to all the React2.com modules. This may work out cheaper than purchasing the stand alone module, depending on how long it is needed for. A stand alone, offline version exists for those without internet access.

N.B:
  British accent
 

Supplier: React

Type of exercises:

• Auditory & visual picture finding
• Picture identification (multiple choice)
• Sentence completion
• Written picture naming
• 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? No. The user must click on an answer, then click again to input their answer and then click again to move onto the next question.

The internet subscription exercises are very slow to accept the answer making multiple activations possible and therefore potentially confusing.

Customisation/personalisation: Yes

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: Only for picture naming exercises

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
• A download version exists for $19.95 per program but works only on Windows, not mac
• Picture naming gives cues (multiple choice/first letter/description/semantic)
• Remote access to results is possible as long as the SLT has the user’s login & password.

N.B:
    US terminology/vocabulary
    Naming exercises are long words with no previous build up exercises to practise pre-spelling skills
    Voice is American and computer generated
    No visual rewards for correct answers
 

Type of exercises:

• Verbal single word naming
• Verbal single word repetition
• Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: Not a specific theory base, SLT experience

Record own speaking attempts: Yes

Correction of own speaking attempts: No

Customisation/personalisation: No

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: No

Tutorials: No

Free trial: Yes

Support: Free lifetime technical support via phone, email or online livechat

Comments:

• Over 500 exercises for practising verbal word finding with nouns, verbs and prepositions.
• Can record & listen to own attempt and compare with model.
• Can only add customised exercises with the deluxe version.

N.B:
    Model voice is American
 

Type of exercises:

• Word or sentence level speaking.
• Spoken conversation phrases
• Describing pictures
• Answering Yes/No questions
• Turning statements into questions

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: No

Correction of own speaking attempts: No

Customisation/personalisation: Yes. Can modify the exercises provided or create your own

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: Yes. Written model, spoken model, written cues, can provide own for customised exercises

Tutorials: No

Free trial: Yes

Support: Free lifetime technical support via phone, email or online livechat

Comments: Can customise or modify exercises so can use an alternative accent

N.B:
    Exercises provided are Americanised

 

Type of exercises:

• Auditory memory &sequencing exercises.
• Remembering 2-5 objects from a spoken list either in order (sequencing) or not

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: Based on SLT experience

Record own speaking attempts: N/A

Correction of own speaking attempts: N/A

Customisation/personalisation: No

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: None

Tutorials: Yes

Free trial: Yes

Support: Free lifetime technical support via phone, email or online livechat

N.B:
    160 exercises in total
    Covers auditory memory only
    Not working on instructions or multi-step instructions, purely remembering objects
    British accent

This program can be purchased as a monthly subscription which gives access to all the React2.com modules. This may work out cheaper than purchasing the stand alone module, depending on how long it is needed for. A stand alone, offline version exists for those without internet access.

Supplier: React

Type of exercises:    Speech production, single word and sentence level targeting a range of linguistic/grammar structures.

Examples of exercises provided:

• sentences with prepositions
• sentences with adjectives
• sentences with prepositions and adjectives
• why questions
• complex sentences with multiple verbs and nouns

Access:    Mouse (including click & drag), Touchscreen

Developed with SLT:    Yes

Theory based:    Yes 

Record own speaking attempts:    Yes

Correction of own speaking attempts:    No, the program does not judge the correctness of utterances

Number of exercises:    Over 800 + unlimited if creating own

Easy to use?    To some extent

Customisation/personalisation:    Yes

Error handling:    None

Prompts/cues given:    Yes. Words/sentences are modelled. User can listen to verbal models of each word. Sentence completion words are provided. Possible to customise own prompts (e.g. semantic ones). Model sentences are also provided.

Record results:    Yes. The users’ speech (& photos) can be made into a video which they can send to others directly from within the program, via email (Windows version) or, in the iOS version, via the full range of sharing options (email, messaging, Facebook, Instagram, etc)

Tutorials:    Yes

Free trial:    Yes but not full version

Support:    Free technical support via email or phone

Comments:

• Ability to customise own exercises with target vocabulary
• Don’t need any reading or spelling skills to use
• Practising speech at sentence level at the user’s own level and speed
• Designed to encourage self-monitoring of speech so whilst there are example models, there are also no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers
• Word finder dictionaries (customiseable) are available to aid sentence construction

N.B:    

• need to use click and drag if not using a touchscreen
• interface could be difficult to follow initially for some users 
• American accent

Supplier details:    www.sentenceshaper.com 
 

Type of exercises:

• Verbal single word naming
• Verbal single word repetition

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: Not a specific theory base, SLT experience

Record own speaking attempts: Yes

Correction of own speaking attempts: No

Customisation/personalisation: Yes

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: No

Tutorials: No

Free trial: Yes

Support: Free lifetime technical support via phone, email or online livechat

Comments:

• Over 500 exercises for practising verbal word finding with nouns, verbs and prepositions.
• Can record & listen to own attempt and compare with model.
• Can only add customised exercises with the deluxe version.

N.B:
    Model voice is American

Type of exercises:

• Money
• Time
• Functional Reading
• Pragmatics

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: Based on SLT experience

Record own speaking attempts: N/A

Correction of own speaking attempts: N/A

Customisation/personalisation: No

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: None

Tutorials: Yes

Free trial: Yes

Support: Free lifetime technical support via phone, email or online livechat

Comments:

• Money – recognising, matching, calculating costs & change, solving money problems
• Clock – setting clock faces, solving time problems (including days, months & years)
• Functional Reading – e.g. labels, menus, receipts, adverts etc with multiple choice answers.
• Pragmatics – intonation, idioms, getting your message across and choosing what you would do/say in social situations

N.B:
    Module covers very different skills at very different levels.
    Some exercises need good listening skills, some need reading skills and some need both
    Big difference in the number of exercises for each section. E.g. the clock problems have over 1000 exercises but the pragmatics only has 200
    British accent.

This program can be purchased as a monthly subscription which gives access to all the React2.com modules. This may work out cheaper than purchasing the stand alone module, depending on how long it is needed for. A stand alone, offline version exists for those without internet access.

Supplier: React

Type of exercises:

• Following written and auditory instructions (up to 7 steps) with letters, numbers, pictures
• Sequencing
• Remembering patterns
• Multi tasking
• Pairs games
• Visual motor memory tasks

Access: Mouse & keyboard. Requires click and drag function

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?: No. The user must click on an answer, then click again to input their answer and then click again to move onto the next question.

The internet subscription exercises are very slow to accept the answer making multiple activations possible and therefore confusing.

Customisation/personalisation: No

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: None

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
• A download version exists for $19.95 per program but works only on Windows, not mac
• Following/remembering instructions are not functional, everyday tasks – pure therapy tasks
• High level memory, attention and sequencing tasks
• 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