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Computer Activities for Those With Speech and Language Difficulties?
An anonymous reader writes "My girlfriend is training to be a speech and language therapist here in the UK (speech pathologist in the US). A number of clients are guys who enjoy playing computer games, and for a variety of reasons some have no incentive to try and improve their speech. The issue is, this can obviously inhibit options for jobs and/or other aspects of life. I was trying to think of fun computer-based activities for those with speech and language difficulties that encourage individuals to speak, and furthermore to speak with greater clarity. Or games/activities that might encourage them to do more speech work. The first options that sprang to mind were the online games with team-speak / team-talk for those with mild difficulties. The sampling / accent issue might force them to speak with greater clarity or wish to have that ability. Obviously, they can just type. Any thoughts?"
Tom Clancy's Endwar. Have to speak clearly to control the RTS game, without the possible embarrassment of talking to real people in an online game.
I'm almost ready to teach myself multimedia programming -- i'd love to have a simple program that would show a picture of an object, say the name of the object ("Say 'snake'") and then record the child saying the word, then play it back for them to hear themselves saying it through headphones. Icing would be if it could somehow evaluate the word and maybe have them try a 2nd or third time if they didn't get it right.
Even more icing would be to make it fun on some level.
There's lots of stuff out there but it's way more expensive and/or complex then just the simple computer program described used to augment traditional speech therapy.
I am the son of an SLP here in the states and a patient of hers as well. This was a fortunate situation for me because I got good therapy and I had parents that were involved. No software will ever replace good therapy with a good therapist / pathologist.
That being said, there are video and board games to be used as therapy tools and they are all geared toward children from preschool through high school. I created a video game about a year ago for just this purpose. The games require the player to get a speech bubble which cues a visual and auditory stimulus, then the player should repeat the stimulus with their best effort. You can even use it with a microphone so that the game continues after you say the word. It does not, however, do any speech recognition, just merely detecting audio activity.
You can download a small demo (Flash projector, demo is Win only but the game is Win / Mac) at the website, http://www.2galsspeechproducts.com/
Feel free to contact me directly if needed. leetrout _at_ gmail _dot_ com
My son's autistic. Playing video games with him made him much, much more verbal, taught him how to solve problems, express directions, give orders, and more.
This is my sig.
"A number of clients are guys who enjoy playing computer games, and for a variety of reasons some have no incentive to try and improve their speech."
This is pretty vague. There are many types of speech difficulties and many ways of dealing with them. As another poster pointed out, minor impediments are one thing, but problems related to physiological problems are more difficult to deal with.
My wife has Athetoid Cerebral Palsy which carries a side effect of her having Tongue Thrust. No degree of traditional speech therapy is going to allow her to control her tongue well enough to speak, although some old-school (and clueless) SLP's tried during her childhood. An Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) device, specifically this, was the solution for her. There is a huge technology industry supporting people with severe speech problems, and similar tech is covered by most insurance carriers in the U.S., including Medicare.
"The issue is it can obviously inhibit options for jobs/other aspects of life etc."
It can and does but it doesn't have to, nor should it. There is a lot more tolerance of disabilities today. We know many people with moderate to severe speech-affected disabilities who manage to lead lives which are not so much affected by by their speech as they are by other aspects of their disabilities. The bigger problem for people with certain types of congenital speech problems, is not speech itself but language and communication deficits which come as a result certain areas of the individual's brain not being developed to the same degree as those who go through the normal speech-learning process as children. Modern SLP's will recognize when tradional therapy is not only the wrong approach, but actually counter-productive.
"I was trying to think of fun computer based activities for those with speech and language difficulties that encourage individuals to speak and furthermore to speak with greater clarity."
There is a lot of software out there which can be used by therapists, and an SLP-in-training should have already been made aware of its existence by those experienced in the field. I think much of it though is probably aimed at the very young. Unfortunately the controlling factors are mostly social, and especially with males, once the teen years are reached, the mold is set unless the individual is already very self-motivated. One has to look at the person's social environment, the severity of the deficit ("I always have an aide who understands me") and at the nature of his support group ("I can already communicate with everyone who is important to me") and his own personal goals.
It seems you've asked for a solution to a very complex problem but haven't defined the problem set enough to suggest a pat solution (of which there are none anyway - each case is different enough from any other that there are few to no general solutions).