Very Large

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

Auditory comprehension exercises including auditory word-picture matching, listening to & following basic directions, temporal directions and conditional directions.

There are up to 9 levels of difficulty & 1700 items

Results can be recorded and emailed. A score is given at the end of each exercise & a record of exercises attempted is also recorded within the app but scores are not saved in these reports.

User can record their speech although this is an app to work on auditory comprehension rather than speech.

Ability to turn on background noise & set for multiple users.

For working on speech sound production. May be useful when working on phonological awareness, articulation, dyspraxia, reading (phonics)

Can choose to work on one or all of: initial sounds, initial clusters, final sounds, final clusters and can work on these phonemes in isolation or within words/non-words

The sounds/words are then presented in a flipbook which is divided into 3 parts each of which flip over separately.  For example, allowing the user to practise a specific phoneme in final position with many different initial and/or medial phonemes

Highly cutomiseable. It is possible to generate personalised word/non-word lists

The user can record their own speech attempts

Supplier: Tactus

Designed to elicit basic to high level conversation.

Can be used for eliciting verbal or written language.

Can be used to work on any area of conversation: eliciting opinions, making descriptions, making inferences, giving definitions, reminiscing, talking about emotions, making predictions, telling stories or even working on fluency and speech clarity.

Could be used for self practise if the person has a means of recording their speech/writing or could be used during therapy sessions with the therapist.

Results (as rated by the therapist or conversation partner) are recorded and can be emailed.

Can customise the written content to elicit specific types of language or work on particular language areas.

The user can choose to have the questions read aloud.

Free trial available through Conversation Therapy Lite app

Supplier: Tactus

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             

• Minimal pairs for speech sound discrimination in flashcard format
• Discrimination and phrase completion tasks
• Targets 20 speech sounds in initial position (700 target words)
• Option to present symbol, word or word & symbol

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues: None

Record results: Yes, but can’t consult previous results

Comments/N.B

• Words always presented in same order
• Can email results at the end of each exercise set

Type of exercises & brief description             

• Listening and/or reading comprehension at single word level of: verbs (107 items), adjectives (107 items) and nouns (507 items, 10 categories)
• 3 levels of difficulty
• Can present from 10 to 100 exercises per session

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues: 3 items are provided but consecutive unsuccessful identification reduces items to 2. Consistently correct selections, increases items to 6. No other cues are provided.

Record results: Results are summarised at the end of the session in % format but not recorded for future reference. Can set a default email address to send results to.

Comments/N.B

• In easy and medium mode, distractors are not always phonological, semantic or visual. In hard mode, distractors are visual and semantic.
• FREE TRIAL available through the languagetherappy Lite app

Supplier: Tactus

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:

• Following written instructions to place shapes. 1-3 step instructions.
• Also sequencing exercises with shapes and written memory to a degree

Developed with SLT: Yes

Theory based: No

Record own speaking attempts: N/A

Correction of own speaking attempts: N/A

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:

• More for work on prepositions and sequencing than direction following
• Can change colours to aid visual difficulties
• Can remove written direction to work on written memory skills too

N.B:
   Need very good sentence level reading
 

Type of exercises:

• Category discrimination & reasoning (semantics)
• Category naming & completion (semantics)
• Cause & effect (what would happen if…)
• Conditional statements (if X then Y…)
• Deductive reasoning (semantics)
• Form & function (semantics)
• Inferential naming (semantics)
• Logical thinking
• Problem solving (pragmatics)
• Reasons why (pragmatics)
• Situation Reasoning (pragmatics)
• Things in common (semantics)

Access: Mouse for all exercises except inferential naming which also requires keyboard

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: No

Error handling: None

Prompts/cues given: None

Tutorials: Yes

Free trial: Yes but not the complete program

Support: Via Livechat. The suppliers can also log onto the user’s computer. 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 subscription version
• A download version exists for $19.95 per program but works only on Windows, not mac
• The pragmatics exercises are aimed at ‘what if’ scenarios
• Remote access to results is possible as long as the SLT has the user’s login & password.

N.B:
    US terminology
    Voice is American and computer generated
    Need single word/simple sentence level reading or good auditory comprehension to complete the tasks
    US terminology & vocabulary
    No visual rewards for correct answers