Computer Activities for Those With Speech and Language Difficulties? 145
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?"
Endwar (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to hijack, but I need something for a kid, too (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
No Software Will Replace Therapy (Score:4, Interesting)
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/ [2galsspeechproducts.com]
Feel free to contact me directly if needed. leetrout _at_ gmail _dot_ com
Video Games (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
No Incentive (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone going through this sort of therapy, I can tell you that if an individual has no incentive or desire, there is absolutely no point in trying.
Game team talk type things might help, but only if they have issues with that kind of situation. There is no substitute for real life trials.
Biased against gamers! (Score:3, Interesting)
I have every incentive. When you are split from the team, a boomer's just puked his bile over you, you're blind as a bat, and the zombie hoard is coming, you need to communicate quickly, concisely, and clearly to your team mates. Since I have started using a mic for gaming , I find myself, mumbling less(such as at work), and becoming very proactive in the quality of my voice communication!
Re:Don't do anything (Score:3, Interesting)
And yet, the rather flamebait-ish response is completely valid and correct. A lack of incentive will lead to a lack of success - so you need to address that before you can address the actual problem (and once you do, traditional approaches will probably work fine). Wasting time on people that don't give a damn is just that - wasting time.
That said, if the patients are so into gaming, that would be a good place to start looking to FIND motivation. No, I don't have any advice in this area, as it was primarily people chatting in video games that drove me away from online gaming.
Re:Same here (Score:3, Interesting)
/r/ is by far the toughest one. It causes people in our profession much consternation. But, as you point out, if all of the other consonants are normal, having the /r/ be a little off isn't that big a deal. There's a wide range of what is intelligible to our ears.
Walters (along with many who grow up speaking Asian languages) cannot even hear the English /r/. She didn't get the joke when they impersonated her on SNL, for example. Some people's brains interpret that sound as something else entirely, which is why they can't produce it.
Some kids have even more extensive phonological problems where other sounds are interpreted as the same (/t/ sounds just like /k/, for example). This is a problem that can mess with reading and language learning beyond just the problem of "talking funny."
Random Idea: Rosetta Stone (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, this is a somewhat random idea. There are a few games that use speech input (some have already been mentioned), but they are usually very finicky for someone without any speech problems, so I would think they would be very frustrating for people who have trouble.
So let me try a semi-random idea: what about Rosetta Stone?
Everyone's pronunciation sucks when they start learning a new language. If you could find one they are interested in for whatever reason (French, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, whatever) they could learn that language. Not only would that be a useful skill, but they would have to work at the new pronunciations. As they get better at those, they will improve their ability to pronounce those same sounds in English. Actually, a language that sounds rather different from English may be better as everything they say, right or wrong, will sound "foreign" and thus be less likely to trigger embarrassment.
The more of the language they learn, the more useful it becomes to them as they could talk to other people, watch TV/movies from a country that speaks that language, etc.
I got quite a lot of reading practice from video games as a kid. If they are the kind that might be motivated to learn a new language, it could really work.
By the time they decide "this is stupid", perhaps their speech will have improved enough for them to see it's worth while.
Re:Same here (Score:2, Interesting)
>Walters (along with many who grow up speaking Asian languages) cannot even hear the English /r/.
Sorta like many Nepalis who can't tell the difference often between SS and SH and B and V. Interesting. I'm currently in the process of retraining my ears so that I can understand Nepali and spend a lot of time helping Nepali international students with English as well as basic life skills. I already speak or understand various languages to some degree, but some of the sounds in Nepali I have had to, or am in the process of, teaching my ears to even hear them properly.
Parent makes a lot of sense. Mod up.
Improving Speech May Not be the Answer (Score:3, Interesting)
"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 [dynavoxtech.com], 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).