Intermediate

Type of app & brief description       

• Spaced retrieval technique to help memory of facts, procedures and other information. The person has a target question they must answer at regular intervals (e.g. what is your wife’s name).

Comments/N.B

• Not for independent practice, need someone working alongside & to program prompt questions
• With creative use, could be useful for functional word finding
   

Supplier: Tactus

Type of exercises & brief description             

• Practice of written and spoken present tense, present progressive and past tense verbs at word and sentence level
• Flashcard exercises
• Multiple choice (4 choices) semantic exercises

Error handling: Removes incorrect responses



Prompts/cues: None



Comments/N.B

• Developed for children but most of the items and photos are adult appropriate

Voice recorder to record your own speech

Record reminders

Record conversations (e.g. at the Dr) to remember what was said and to play back later

Send recordings via email

Type of app & brief description       

• Attach voice recordings to your photos.
• When you press on a photo, the voice recording speaks out so you can explain your photos and use them in conversation if your speech is affected.

Comments/N.B

• Free

Brief description

• Free text to speech program
• Works in Microsoft programs, webpages, PDF files and emails
• No copy and paste required: uses its own task bar
• Can also magnify text and change the font colour, style and size to aid reading

Who could benefit

• People who struggle to read
• People with visual difficulties

Brief description

• Reading & writing tool designed for children but can be very helpful for people with aphasia who need help with writing & spelling
• Word prediction (can be personalised)
• Word & phrase banks by topic or A-Z (can be personalised)
• Written or picture supported word banks
• Hear words before selecting
• Listen back to what you have written
• Make voice notes to rehearse a sentence before writing it

Who could benefit

• People who have some spelling but who need writing & spelling prompts
• People who have no spelling but who would like to write letters/cards
  
   

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 speech sounds for apraxia of speech & other motor speech disorders
• Building speech –  to practise basic speech patterns & build up to sentence length utterances, (includes basic  functional phrases)
• Using speech – to practise continuous speech (includes phrases for the phone, & at a restaurant)
• Creating own speech samples
• 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

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues: Video and audio clips of oral movements

Comments:

• It is recommended that headphones be worn to do the exercises
• Success relies on many, many repetitions so user needs to be motivated to do this kind of therapy
• For a fee, user can send own phrases to the company for them to create conversation scripts
   

Brief description

• Word prediction, speech recognition & screen reader
• The program predicts to aid spelling, gives examples of word useage, reads aloud text on the screen (what you’re typing or what you’re reading).
• Can also use speech recognition to ‘type’ in words.
• Can customise the dictionary to improve prediction
• Screen reader, prediction & speech recognition works within all programs/web pages (e.g. can use within email, social networking sites & web searches)

Who could benefit:

• People who can spell the first 2-3 letters of a word before getting stuck
• People who can spell words but sometimes find it easier to say a word

Comments

• All parts of the program work on PC. Mac users only have access to the word prediction & screen reading parts of the program, not the speech recognition part
• Switch accessible only if using Wivick connection cable
   

Type of exercises & brief description             

• Fill the blank, anagrams, picture spelling, spelling to dictation of nouns
• 3 levels (easy/medium/hard) - the harder levels provide more letters to choose from in the anagram exercises
• Can choose 10-50 exercises per session and 3-10 letter words
• Can designate upper/lowercase display

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues: Written and spoken word given as cues on request. In the harder levels, there is a 'hint' button which reduces the number of letters to choose from and will provide the initial letter if the user makes 3 errors.

Record results: Can email results to designated  email address. Details include score and which cues were requested.

Comments/N.B

• Written instructions provided on how to use the app. These would not be accessible to someone with compromised reading skills
• FREE TRIAL available through the languagetherappy Lite app

Supplier: Tactus