Aphasia Treatment App

Supplier: Tactus

4 sets of sentence and conversation level exercises:

1. Using verbs to make sentences

250 concrete & abstract verbs. A verb is provided and the user must make 3 sentences by generating content or choosing from multiple choice options. They can write and/or speak & record their options.  The user is then encouraged to expand on their sentence.  6 activties are generated from each verb, encoraging more autonomy with differing levels of cues.

2. Comparing similar items

206 concrete & abstract items are presented in either image or text form.  The user is invited to verbalise how the items are alike and different.  They can record their spoken attempts.

3. Category association naming

320 concrete and abstract categories are provided.  The user must name from 3 to an unlimited number of associated items (e.g. things starting with /r/, appliances). This activity can be timed. There is also the possiblity to carry out a 1 minute semantic fluency test and a 1 minute phonemic fluency test to assess verbal fluency

4. Generating conversations

507 images are provided (e.g. funny food, unusual objects) to prompt description and/or conversation. Questions are provided to prompt the description or conversation.

Error handling: none. The user must decide themselves whether or not the got an item correct

Prompts/cues: In the verb sentences exercises, multiple choice items are provided.  The user can also opt to hear their sentences spoken aloud. Keywords are also provided as hints. No cues are given on the other exercises

Record results: a score is given at the end of each exercise and results can be emailed. The user cannot look back at previous results within the app

Free trial: yes, free trial available through Advanced Language Therapy Lite app

Comments: On-screen, aphasia friendly instructions on how to use the app are provided. Comprehensive written instructions are also provided however these would not be accessible to someone with compromised reading skills

Supplier: Tactus

3 exercise sets:

• sequences (automatic speech such as ABC, alphabet)
• 1-6 word phrases (7 levels)
• 2-5 syllable words (4 levels)
• 175 exercises in total

The words/phrases are of a functional nature, useful for conversation

Rate of speech can be altered

Visual (video & text) and auditory (spoken) cues given

5 stepped approach to verbal production (listen/tap rhythm/say with model/say with model fading out/say with verbal but no auditory model)

Items can be presented in stepped order of difficulty or randomised

User needs good self-monitoring skills to be able to self-rate whether they got the response correct

Self-ratings and audio recordings can be emailed to SLT

NB audio recordings are with an American accent

A free trial is available through Apraxia Therapy Lite app

Supplier: Tactus

Exercises for following written and spoken multi-step instructions with 100 stimuli items

Choose from 2-6 information carrying words

Features worked on include size, colour, before, after, first, then

There are preliminary exercises to check the person has understood all the concepts, before moving onto the full exercises

Results can be emailed or consulted in-app

No prompts/cues are provided

Exercises to work on understanding numbers in the written & spoken form, speaking numbers & writing numbers

Choose to work on numbers in different formats (e.g. money, years, time, fractions, ordinals)

Option to add personalised phone numbers

Option to record spoken attempts

3 difficulty levels

A Free trial is available through the Number Therapy Lite app

Suppliers: App store & google play store

Supplier: Tactus

Writing exercises:

• Copying letters & words
• Written picture naming
• Complete the phrase (spell a word to complete a saying)
• Sentence scramble (re-arranging words to form a short sentence)

Speaking exercises:

• Articulation & oro-motor exercises
• Functional spoken word & phrase repetition
• Flashcard naming (spoken picture naming of nouns, verbs & adjectives)
• Naming using semantic feature analysis strategies

Reading exercises:

• Letter, word and phrase matching
• Written word/sentence to picture matching
• Written word sentence completion
• Article reading based around current news topics

Listening exercises:

• Spoken word to picture matching
• Spoken phrase to picture matching
• Spoken question to picture matching
• Following auditory directions

There is also a large bank of memory, semantic categorisation & maths exercises 

There is also a large bank of ADL exercises (e.g. reading menus, reading product labels, telling the time and reading calendar entries).

The memory and ADL exercises also work on various language areas e.g. auditory memory, functional reading, semantics, auditory comprehension and inferences.

Error handling: Yes

Prompts/cues: Yes

Record results: Yes, very detailed, specifying which cues were required, which answer was chosen, how long the task took to complete and dates tasks were attempted

Comments/N.B

• There is only one version for UK, US, Aus

• 3-4 levels of difficulty, depending on exercises

• Very large bank of over 13,500 items

• Reliant on the user self monitoring and knowing whether they named the item correctly or not.

There is no facility for recording speech attempts and the app itself does not determine level of accuracy. This app would therefore not be appropriate for independent use by someone with poor self monitoring

• FREE TRIAL available

Program: Aphasia therapy online

Type of exercises:

• listening (auditory/word matching, auditory/picture matching, spell a spoken word, auditory letter discrimination)
• reading (single words & short phrases, matching upper/lower case letters, answering simple, written Y/N questions, auditory letter discrimination)
• spelling (picture naming & spelling spoken words)
• written picture naming, spoken picture naming

Access: keyboard & mouse

Developed with SLT: yes

Theory based: no

Record own speaking attempts: no

Correction of own speaking attempts: no

Number of exercises: several levels and 40-50 items per exercise

Easy to use? yes

Customisation/personalisation: no

Error handling: only 1 error is allowed before answer is given, to prevent errorful learning 

Prompts/cues given: initial letter/semantic cue, can limit word length

Record results: no

Tutorials: no

Free trial: program is free

Support: from the SLT who developed it

Comments: user must make own judgement of whether spoken naming was correct. No spoken models are provided to make this judgment

Languages: In addition to English, this resource is available in both European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese - either the therapy tasks or the entire website as preferred.

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

Picture naming tasks where the person can record their own spoken attempt

Verbal word finding exercises for 104 words associated with men, based on semantic feature analysis

A picture is presented for the person to name.  8 levels of cue are available (including phonemic, initial letter spelling, semantic description)

The exercises encourage semantic questioning (What type of thing is this? Can you describe it?)

The many levels of cue would be useful for communication partners wanting useful strategies to adopt to aid word finding

Specific stimuli can be presented from 104 items if wanting to work on specific items only

There is no option to record own speaking attempts

% scores recorded