Clinical trials

Aims to improve understanding of spoken word.

Includes 800 words - presented singularly or in a sentence

Gamified activities - match spoken words to pictures.

Choose sets of words to practice

Part of a current clinical trial - can choose to participate in research during use of app - or decline.

Tested in clinical trial with 30 participants living with aphasia. They compelted 85 hours practice over 12 week period. 31% imprvement seen for practiced words.

A phone/tablet based app which targets issues with single word reading associated with alexia & aphasia

Written and spoken words as well as pictures are used to re-build associations between semantics, orthographics and phonology

600 stimuli items are provided and up to 30 'trials'

Initially, the user is required to complete a test of reactions, vision, reading, spelling and writing. They then do 'look & listen' exercises to familiarise themselves with the target words.  There are then 'trials' using auditory to written word matching with pictorial support.  The initial tests are time consuming but can be paused

Familiarisation tasks and trials are automatically created based on performance and change according to progress made

Audio and visual, on-screen aphasia guides are provided to guide the user through how the app works

Results are recorded and include training time taken, reading accuracy and reading speed

60 tasks with a functional bias to work on:

• Auditory comprehension (sounds/words/paragraphs/rhyming/auditory instructions)
• Speech (word repetition, picture naming, reading aloud)
• Semantics (written & spoken)
• Spelling (picture naming, copying, anagrams, auditory naming)
• Reading (picture-word matching, reading comprehension, written lexical decision making)
• Attention
• Visual processing
• Time telling
• Map reading
• Cognitive function
• Problem solving
• Planning
• Reading & understanding numbers

There are 2 versions of the therapy app - a user version & a clinician version

In the clinician version, the clinician can remotely edit exercise sets and access results

Supplier: Constant

Free app co-designed by consultants with aphasia and researchers at City University to encourage people with aphasia to engage in creative writing

Select a piece of writing (your own or one of the 10 included) as your starting point. Automatically erase most of the words to reveal a small set of words to work with. Add and erase words until you have a set of words you'd like to work with. Arrange these words to make a piece of writing and save a photo of it or share it via Twitter or the other apps on your ipad (e.g. email, text, Whats App etc).

60 tasks with a functional bias to work on:

• Auditory comprehension (sounds/words/paragraphs/rhyming/auditory instructions)
• Speech (word repetition, picture naming, reading aloud)
• Semantics (written & spoken)
• Spelling (picture naming, copying, anagrams, auditory naming)
• Reading (picture-word matching, reading comprehension, written lexical decision making)
• Attention
• Visual processing
• Time telling
• Map reading
• Cognitive function
• Problem solving
• Planning
• Reading & understanding numbers

There are 2 versions of the therapy app - a client version & a clinician version.  The clinician version is free. The client version requires a yearly subscription.

Supplier: Constant

Therapy exercises for visual neglect and inattention

Practice & test modes encourage a normal visual scanning pattern (left to right/top to bottom)

Can change settings to adjust line spacing, number of targets, letters &/or symbols and presence of a flashing, coloured target to encourage visual scanning to neglected side

10 levels

Results can be emailed at end of each exercise session

Type of exercises:

• Verbal word finding of sounds and single words.
• Hear the sound, see a video of the mouthshape and then produce it yourself.

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: Yes

Record own speaking attempts: Yes

Correction of own speaking attempts: No

Customisation/personalisation: No

Error handling: Yes. Spoken word & mouth shape video cues given.

Prompts/cues given: Yes. Spoken & video (silent or with sound)

Tutorials: Yes

Free trial: Yes

Support: Free phone and online support

Comments:

• Can listen to recordings of attempts in previous sessions to compare
• Can attempt each sound in turn or in random order

N.B:
  Free trial available: speech sounds on cue for ipad lite
  N.B: only available through the app store, not through the developer's site
 

Type of exercises & brief description             

• Practise of 10 songs to encourage spontaneous and automatic speech
• Songs chosen to practise variety of initial & contrastive sounds
• Songs chosen to practise different rhythms, pace & rates

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues: Video and audio clips of oral movements

Comments:

• It is recommended that headphones be worn to do the exercises
• Male & female model examples

Type of exercises & brief description             

• Practise of 21 consonant phonemes progressing to phoneme production in initial position of word/phrase
• The user is expected to produce the sounds in unison with the model provided
• They can watch their own production of sounds simultaneously if their device has a camera
• Sounds are organised into sound families and contrastive sounds

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues: Video and audio clips of oral movements

Comments:

• It is recommended that headphones be worn to do the exercises
• For a fee, user can send own phrases to the company for them to create conversation scripts
• Can designate specific exercises to be completed
• Only consonant phonemes provided

Brief description

• 85 symbol supported spoken phrases relating to daily, adult activities

Comments/N.B

• Designed for general use in conversations
• No personal or specific vocabulary
• Could replace a generic, basic communication book/chart