Clinical trials

Brief description

• 66 generic, symbol supported  spoken phrases appropriate for someone with aphasia

Comments/N.B

• Designed for general use when out & about
• No personal or specific vocabulary
• Could replace a generic, basic communication book/chart
   

Type of exercises & brief description             

• AAC app
• 50 symbol supported spoken phrases in the categories:
•     Stroke
•     Conversation
•     Phone
•     Emergency
•     Meals
•     Restaurants
•     Health
•     Pain scale

Comments/N.B

• Designed to be a quick & easy to use conversation aid
• Some Americanisms in the restaurant and food choices
   

Type of exercises:

• Reading/repeating sentences and paragraphs aloud

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: Yes

Record own speaking attempts: No

Correction of own speaking attempts: No

Customisation/personalisation: No

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: No

Tutorials: No

Free trial: No

Support: phone or email (in USA)

Comments:

• From 3 word sentences up to 100 word paragraphs
• Listen to sentence, point at words heard spoken and then repeat sentences
• Advised to practise for 30 minutes per day

N.B:
   Program doesn't load to the computer, it requires the CD to run
 

Type of exercises:

• Verbal and written naming of nouns, verbs, adjectives (e.g. people, weather, hobbies, nature, clothes+ customised/personalised vocab  (needs to be able to be pictorially represented))
• Single word and sentence level spoken word finding
• Word level semantics
• Spoken repetition exercises
• The My Words suite of exercises uses the words the user is practising in a range of different exercises in order to intensively work on the same words in different exerise formats (e.g. matching, repetition, naming, spelling)
• Up to 10 levels of exercise, gradually increasing in complexity
• Assessment items provided to gauge start level & vocabulary

Developed with SLT: Yes



Theory based: Yes. Lots of evidence to support this software, some of which is on the research evidence page of this site



Record own speaking attempts: Yes



Correction of own speaking attempts: No



Customisation/personalisation: Yes



Error handling: Yes. Spoken, written, phonemic & video cues given, options reduced & then correct answer provided to copy. Can’t make more than 2 consecutive errors.  Clinician can specifiy degree of accuracy required before the program automatically moves the person onto the next level of exercises or moves them to an easier level of exercise



Prompts/cues given: Yes. Written, spoken, video, phonemic



Tutorials: Yes. Comprehensive, step by step video tutorials provided for each section of the software for both users and clinicians



Free trial: Yes



Support: Free phone support & in-program video tutorials



Comments:

• Sentence level: e.g. incorporating the word ‘tea’ into the sentence ‘I would like a cup of …’
• Assessment stimuli can be used as a start guide and for re-assessment of progress
• Gradual building of skills through graded exercises. User moves on to next level automatically once competent at the previous level (SLT can set the criteria for when to move them on). Equally, if they fail to achieve a certain % the SLT can set the facility to automatically provide an easier level of exercise
• Can remotely update and download exercises & results (with the clinician version of the software)
• There is the facility to write therapy notes within the program if the clinician is doing the exercise with the user
• Personalised vocabulary and photos can be programmed and the clinician can provide the phonemic cue (phonetic keyboard provided) & a video of mouth shapes as well as sentence level examples of the word's use

N.B:

  British accent

 

Type of exercises:

• Listening exercises from pre-word level up to conversation level
• Auditory discrimination (pre-word)
• Understanding words
• Understanding sentences
• Understanding conversations

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: Based on SLT experience

Record own speaking attempts:N/A

Customisation/personalisation:No

Error handling:None

Prompts/cues given:None

Free trial:Yes

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

Comments:

• No reading required at all, purely listening exercises
• The module covers a huge ability range.
• Each area covered has many sub sections and up to 7 levels within those subsections.
• The conversation level exercises also work on auditory memory to some degree
• 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.
• Requires use of a mouse only

Supplier: React

Type of exercises:

• Pre-reading, reading comprehension (single word to paragraph level), spelling, word identification, homonym judgement tasks.
• Includes:
      picture, shape, photo, symbol, letter and number recognition
      word to paragraph level reading comprehension
      grammar exercises (e.g. correct verb forms)
      anagrams for simple spelling exercises

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

Record results: Yes

Tutorials: Yes

Free trial: Yes

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

Comments:

• Highest level word building is high level
• When building words, can see what the word would look like before making a selection
• Vast selection of exercises covering a very wide ability range.
• Paragraph level reading includes high level inference exercises
• Spelling includes exercises with phonemic chunks which can be confusing

N.B:
    Distractors aren’t always visual, phonemic or semantic
    Some people may find some line drawings confusing
    All spelling exercises are based on anagrams. There are no exercises for generating whole word spelling
    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:

• 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:

• 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