Reading words

Free software designed for people living with aphasia.

Practice spelling/ typing

Access via mouse or touch screen

Range of categories: social media, text messaging, online shopping, frequently used words

Personalise with own word categories

Collate results across tasks

Choose level of support / difficulty

Free version provides common category question and answer activities. Picture support. Multiple choice word finding. Variable level of difficulty from easy to hard.

1,500 free games

Subscription version allows import of personal photos.

Clinically endorsed by ORCHA

A straightforward phone/tablet based app which supports practice of single word picture naming.

Photographic picture prompts are provided one at a time for naming.  Users can also access cues for the initial written letter of the word, the full written letter and/ore the full spoken word.  

500 + stimuli items are provided.

Picture stimuli are presented in random order for naming.  Choice of items cannot be customised. Once app is restarted, the users restarts where they left off last time.

Target pictures are not categorised semantically but instead across three levels of complexity: simple, moderate and complex.  Target complexity is based on concreteness and imagability as determined through the developer's clinical experience. Target images have not been normed.

The app does not provide feedback regarding the accuracy of user's production.

App interface is intuitive and uncluttered.

N.B. The price of the android and iOS apps differ.

Available in English, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Portuguese (Brazilian), Filipino.

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

Tasks to work on spoken and written comprehension of nouns, verbs and occupations.

2200 functional stimuli items, from 10 different categories e.g. clothing, health & body, home & garden, leisure, nature

Includes a training section where the user can familiarise themselves and practise with stimuli items before moving onto the comprehension tasks

In the training tasks, the client can hear and/or see 2 examples of the target word, then match the word to the correct picture (choice of 3)

In the photo shuffle: tasks, the client is required to match the spoken and/or written word to the pictures (choice of 2-6)

In the word match tasks, the client is required to match the picture  to the correct spoken and/or written word (choice of 3)

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

Text to speech program. Reads text aloud as it is typed so you can listen to what you are typing 

Brief description

• Spelling errors are highlighted and alternative suggestions are given
• Word prediction can be enabled
• Option to hear each word as it's typed or to listen only when a sentence is completed

Who could benefit

People who 

Screen reading software. Take a photo of written text and it will read the text back to you aloud

Brief description

• Available as an app or software

• Choose to hear the text read word by word, line by line or hear the whole text read out

• Speed up/slow down the screen reading voice

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).

Free demo app for Advanced Language Therapy

Try out exercises for Advanced Comprehension Therapy, Advanced Naming Therapy, Advanced Reading Therapy & Advanced Writing Therapy apps (search each app separately for more detailed information)

1 trial is provided for each section of each app to enable you to inform purchase decisions for the apps which can be purchased separately or as a bundle in Advanced Language Therapy

Supplier: Tactus