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Medicine Software

Computer Activities for Those With Speech and Language Difficulties? 145

Posted by timothy from the yr-voice-is-yr-password dept.
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?"
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Computer Activities for Those With Speech and Language Difficulties? More

Computer Activities for Those With Speech and Language Difficulties?

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  • It all depends (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arb phd slp ( 1144717 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:09PM (#29945260) Homepage Journal

    How significant a speech impairment are you talking about?

    If it is only a speech issue (like a lisp) and they don't value the therapy, then I'm not sure what to say. I know a guy here who has quirky speech, but he's doing fine as an engineering student at a major university.

    The reason we target speech in kids so heavily is that speech issues may (although not always) be a symptom of an underlying language problem that interferes with many other aspects of language. It's not just making kids talk better; it's more about giving kids who need it a redundant channel to learn phonology, morphology, and syntax.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by hedwards ( 940851 )
      But isn't a guy with a Lisp a programmer?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Caity ( 140482 )

      I don't think the OP is talking about lisps and stutters.

      We've all seen the family out to dinner with mum and dad staring into space and the kids totally absorbed by their Nintendos. The prevalence of modern technology has created massive problems in the development of language skills in kids because it has made it so easy for them to avoid conversation.

      It's a skill that has to be practiced just like everything else.

      It becomes a vicious cycle as the child grows older - they know their speech isn't good, so

      • What about scrabble? seems like almost obvious. Or Boggle.

      • We've all seen the family out to dinner with mum and dad staring into space and the kids totally absorbed by their Nintendos. The prevalence of modern technology has created massive problems in the development of language skills in kids because it has made it so easy for them to avoid conversation.

        Or has technology really increased conversation. I mean, due to the internet the average person talks to many more people than ever before. For example, right now I am replying to your post, I might never see you, we might live in different countries, we may have totally different interests and career paths yet we are communicating. 30 years ago that was unheard of. Yet it is something we do on a daily basis.

        I've heard of otherwise normally intelligent teenagers who cannot express frighteningly simple things like "I like the way she looks in that dress" without a lot of effort. They speak like you would expect someone to speak after learning a foreign language for about three weeks - they have to think about the words and the order of the words, and they make stuff up that sounds plausible to cover the fact they know they are getting it wrong.

        Or you know it could be part of the social awkwardness of teenagers where they don't want to giv

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by wisty ( 1335733 )

          Text is slower, and not as rich.

          On the other hand it's persistent, modifiable, discrete, asynchronous, and good for many-to-many broadcasts. SMS is the worst of both worlds (in many cases).

        • I don't agree is better. Is different, but is not better. A lot of people hide behind the screen/mobile device and talk whatever smack they want, free of guilt because there are no consequences to what they say. Of course this only applies to interactions between two strangers. But you will never replace an actual face-to-face talk with another human, because 93% of the conversation is transmitted via nonverbal communication (http://humanresources.about.com/od/interpersonalcommunicatio1/a/nonverbal_com.htm [about.com])

          • ...Just think about the tones we use when talking. They can really change the meaning of what someone's saying. You can't transmit that on a text.

            :(

  • Endwar (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Overunderrated ( 1518503 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:10PM (#29945264)
    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.

    • Good one. I'd recommend Odama if the speech recognition wasn't so awful.

      Or chat/IM using Dragon Speaking Naturally. Social, but where the other person can't actually hear you.

      • Or chat/IM using Dragon Speaking Naturally.

        Doesn't speech recognition software require you to train them before using it? I'm asking because if you let the person with a speech impairment train the software, said software won't know whether what's been said has been done so with clarity.

      • Good one. I'd recommend Odama if the speech recognition wasn't so awful.

        That's why I play McCein instead ;-)

    • English or American? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @09:23PM (#29946110) Journal
      Note that the poster was in the UK - so does the speech recognition understand English or just American? I remember an incredibly frustrating phonecall using the United Airlines speech "recognition" system they used a while ago to give out flight times. Being British the damn thing completely failed to understand what I was saying until I guessed that it wanted a US accent. Amazingly my fake American accent was enough to get some comprehension from the system. So, unless whatever speech recognition you use is designed for British accents and language, all you may end up doing is exchanging one speech impediment for another!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Or they could try Caution Seaman for the Dreamcast. If you say it incorrectly, he *will* correct you.

  • Not to hijack, but I need something for a kid, too (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pw700z ( 679598 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:13PM (#29945292)
    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.

    • Re:Not to hijack, but I need something for a kid, (Score:5, Informative)

      by ModernGeek ( 601932 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:29PM (#29945404)
      No, we won't help you with your homework.

    • Feedback control is usually how they got people to stop stutter.

      They put a microphone on them and feed what they're saying back into headphones with a slight delay.

      I guess it's also good for other things. [speechcorrector.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pw700z ( 679598 )
        Thank you -- you've provided a whole new avenue I can craft Google searches around, and the linked software is very interesting, too.

    • hint: "Praat Language Lab was developed to help students and language teachers learn to use the Praat software to improve spoken English. Many colleges and universities use Praat to provide visual feedback to spoken sound."
      apply google with hint

      If the program is too complex, the problem may be complex.

    • What you're describing is almost exactly how Rosetta Stone [as seen on TV] works.

    • A novice programmer like yourself could conceivably get the first part. Displaying images, recording and playing back sound samples are all readily available functions you can call on via C# and open source libraries.

      However, adding the second feature would increase the complexity of the project a hundred to a thousand times. That's high end speech recognition, and you would need to put in probably months to years coding it up and would need advanced understanding of mathematics and of the algorithms used

      • Or you can use python on linux and the open source speech libraries designed by academic linguists to do this sort of thing. A google search for speech analysis/recognition and linux should turn up the necessary libraries.

        Now, understanding the gobbledygook that comes with speech analysis to actually understand the libraries is what might take years.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Faerunner ( 1077423 )
      Hey, that's my job!
      (Part of it, anyway. I work with kids with autism spectrum disorders and many, many of them have great difficulties with speech and language processing. They not only don't speak clearly (if at all) but they have trouble labeling objects both receptively (touch the couch!) and expressively (what is that? Couch!)). I'm really interested to see what people have to say about this. The best motivation I've found is to take away anything the kid really wants (food, drinks, toys, computer) an
    • I posted below... I've created exactly what you described without the speech recording / processing.

      Check it out at http://www.2galsspeechproducts.com/ [2galsspeechproducts.com]
    • I was about to mod you up, but I guess it's useful to reply instead.

      I'm a stutterer and one of the problems that I've encountered is the lack of open source software for Delayed Auditory Feedback/Frequency Altered Feedback (DAF/FAF). DAF/FAF reduces stuttering to a certain degree.

      There is a need for a free Linux (or even Windows mobile) DAF/FAF software. If such free software exists, stutterers can simply install it on their PDAs (Angstrom Linux, anyone?), and connect it to a headphone. PDAs are mu

  • When I have to phone a robot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mirix ( 1649853 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:13PM (#29945294)
    And it doesn't understand me, it usually just pisses me off, rather than cures my speech. :-/
    Unless you want me to speak very loud and slow to everyone!


    automated POS: "would you like to... say yes for option one"
    me: "yes"
    robot: "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that, please repeat"
    me: "YES"
    robot: " I'm sorry, I didn't understand that, please repeat... or press 1 for yes, 2 for no"

    [furiously presses 1]
    • Ha HA

      Fonejacker:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0SGKcTMaoY [youtube.com]

    • That's because you mistakenly think that "Yes" is pronounced "Munfth."

    • My school had a phone robot that would call people on campus. (Small School), the problem was that it was adaptive and learned how you 'pronounced' peoples names. Leaning to all sorts of hilarity.

      "Who would you like to call:"

      Jane Doe. [dials].

      Jane Doe Slut. "Did you mean Jane Doe" "Yes" [Dials]

      Jane Slut. "Did you mean Jane Doe" "Yes" [dials]

      Slut. "Did you mean Jane Doe" "Yes" [dials]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by argent ( 18001 )

      I gave up on speech recognition software after I got an iPaq with Dragon's command recognition software bundled.

      The only command I could get it to reliably understand, and I kid you not, was the command to turn it off.

      • I had the speech recognition turned on on my Macintosh until it decided that the sound that my office chair made when I leaned back was "gimp." I'd lean back in my chair, which would make a springy sound, and the Mac would launch X11 and Gimp. Very annoying.

    • Unless you want me to speak very loud and slow to everyone!

      Whatever you do! Do not speak more slowly.

      Americans actually swallow their words when they speak. If you're French (like me), then slowing your speech down will only have the opposite effect, you won't swallow your words, you'll enunciate them all too well, and that will only confuse the American person/telephone system even more.

      When an American says to slow down your speech, it usually means they want you to elongate your syllables (so that eac

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hatta ( 162192 )

        I don't know what you're on about. I don't swallow when I talk.

        • I didn't mean actual swallowing, I meant swallowing your words.

          And from your perspective, I wouldn't expect you to notice anything abnormal. To you, your own speech is normal. What I should have said instead was: the more a French person would supposedly slow down for you, the more their speech would seem disjointed and the more their inflection points would seem further out of place.

          The next time you're speaking to someone with a French accent, I'd suggest you ask them to speed up for you (and see if yo

    • My problem is, the machine's vocabulary is too limited.

      "Sorry, 'fuck you' does not compute".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Inda ( 580031 )
      And I put on my polite telephone voice when speaking to those things.

      POS: Do you have a repayment or interest mortgage?

      ME: I have a repayment.

      POS: Sorry, please answer "repayment" or "interest"

      ME: RE-PAY-MENT

      POS: Would you like to speak to an advisor?

      ME: Yes please.

      POS: Sorry, please answer "yes" or "no"

      ME: Fucking do one.

  • Brain Training (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:15PM (#29945302)

    I've just been discharged from a neuro-rehabilitation unit in the states to treat the aftermath of a 6 cm benign tumor resection in my right-frontal lobe. I didn't participate with the full program of offering, but I did have a very good Speech therapist who didn't focus just on language but also on things like deductive reasoning, scanning for words in blocks of text, and other interesting cognitive exercises. One of the things we did was work on what are sometimes called Quizzles, or logic puzzles. Where you are given a situation and a set of clues, and you are left to decide how to solve the puzzle, given that only one condition per subset could be true, resulting in the negation of the rest of the options. At first they were difficult because my brain was just tired (I was going through radiation treatments simultaneously), but after a time, they got easier as I was healing and the other therapies I was receiving was taking hold.

    One of the programs she had also introduced me to was a program called "Brain Train" which had a whole subset of interesting ways of interpreting problems and coming up with a solution. One of those ended up being an interactive Towers of Hanoi puzzle. Since I'm able to write code, I had to go back into memory and remember the way that was solvable using recursion. I didn't tell her that though.

    Another thing that I think worked for me was the "Brain Age" titles for Nintendo DS. There's lots of things that don't pertain to speech, but there are some things that are.

  • No Software Will Replace Therapy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by leetrout ( 855221 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:23PM (#29945352) Journal
    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/ [2galsspeechproducts.com]

    Feel free to contact me directly if needed. leetrout _at_ gmail _dot_ com

  • Video Games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tjstork ( 137384 ) <todd.bandrowsky@ ... UGARom minus cat> on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:23PM (#29945354) Homepage Journal

    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)

    by perlhacker14 ( 1056902 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:24PM (#29945358)

    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.

  • If they have no incentive to improve their speech, why are they clients of a speech pathologist? Whose money is being wasted? The person paying the pathologist should limit their computer use, and maybe talk to them more often.
    • I'd have to guess that they are required to attend in order to continue to receive unemployment benefits or some such.

  • Biased against gamers! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stimpleton ( 732392 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:31PM (#29945420)
    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

    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!

    • How hard is it to yell:

      "HELP! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

      Some choice expletives may be appropriate at this point as well.

    • Thus: Keybinds were invented (way before voice chat was added to their games).

      Pressing a key (or mouse button if you have more than 3 whole buttons) will send an obvious team chat to designate you need help.

      Don't get me wrong however, sometimes speech can be good in certain games where you need on the fly strategy. Just wasn't a good example however :P

  • Don't do anything (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mr. Freeman ( 933986 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @07:37PM (#29945462)
    "some have no incentive to try and improve their speech."
    If they have no incentive then don't bother with them. If someone isn't willing to work at something then there's no point helping them, they're still going to fail. If they have trouble getting employment, then that's an incentive right there. You don't need to create incentives for someone who doesn't want to try.

    If there isn't an incentive then there usually isn't a problem. If they don't have trouble getting a job, don't have trouble working with people, don't want to talk to people online, then they're not likely to bother trying to improve their speech.

    • If they have no incentive then don't bother with them. If someone isn't willing to work at something then there's no point helping them, they're still going to fail. If they have trouble getting employment, then that's an incentive right there. You don't need to create incentives for someone who doesn't want to try..

      It's clear the OP doesn't give a toss about why the clients "have no incentive", he just wants to solve the problem regardless of your feelings about people needing to motivate themselves. I respect his position much more than using emotions or jealousy as an excuse not to solve the problem.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Firehed ( 942385 )

        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 primari

        • 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).

          Nevertheless, in this case the incentive *is* the problem that the OP is trying to address through the use of computer games. The OP is asking how to address this problem, and instead of answering directly, Freeman basically responded "you shouldn't solve this problem" or asserted that the problem is inherently unsolvable. Both of those answers are very much unproductive.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Inda ( 580031 )

          was primarily people chatting in video games that drove me away from online gaming.

          Why? Is your mom teh fag lamer noob?

          Seriously, I can't stand voice chatting on games either. There's always someone with a bad mouth. One who's played the game a million times more than me and like to tell me at every opportunity. One who get a little bit too excited. One who wants to chat about anything but the game...

          Talking is overrated.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 )
      Your theory might work (emphasis on the might, very few human societies have ever tried to operate on the "well, if he isn't motivated just ignore him until he is" principle, so there aren't many data) on more or less rational adults.

      It is quite possible, though, given the usual places you find speech/language pathologists that OP's girlfriend will be dealing with children. That strategy simply doesn't cut it with them.

    • If they have trouble getting employment, then that's an incentive right there.

      True. I have a disability, and I couldn't find a job until my state's vocational rehabilitation department referred me to an employment agency specializing in people with disabilities. But in a welfare state, the incentive becomes convincing patients why they would even need a job when they can live on the dole and/or leech off their parents as a parasite single [wikipedia.org].

  • Girls. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @08:32PM (#29945794) Homepage
    A passle of good looking girls, a few beers, and these guys will have lots of incentive to hone their language skills.

    It's like the old story of the kid who grew to be twelve years old without ever uttering a word. Doctors found nothing, psychologists found nothing, neurologists found nothing - there was no reason why he shouldn't talk.

    One morning though he sat down at the kitchen table picked up his breakfast, and said "This porridge is cold!"

    His startled Mother says "My God Tommy! You talked! What happened?"

    Tommy looks at her and says "Until now everything was OK."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by syousef ( 465911 )

      A passle of good looking girls, a few beers, and these guys will have lots of incentive to hone their language skills.

      That didn't work for the slashdot crowd. Plenty of incentive and generally we still only speak geek and get shy around women ;-)

      It's like the old story of the kid who grew to be twelve years old without ever uttering a word.....Tommy looks at her and says "Until now everything was OK."

      That story is pure fiction. If kids know one thing innately it's how to complain. Some babies are more placi

  • Timmeh (Score:2, Funny)

    by Kohath ( 38547 )

    Timmeh!

    TIMMEH!

  • It's not a "game" per se, but it might be interesting to the client to see a spectrogram [wikipedia.org] of their actual speech. Then they could try to match the pattern to a model spectrogram of the therapist's speech.

    Then you could make funny fart noises and see what those look like.

  • Slashdot editor?

  • Get 'em flight gear, set up a multiplayer env. where they have to do voice communication wtih air traffic control

  • Random Idea: Rosetta Stone (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Sunday November 01, 2009 @09:30PM (#29946174) Homepage

    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.

    • Then again, very few languages have the same speech sounds as English does. Nor do they have the same frequency range.

      Now, what helped me with my English pronounciation was yoga and correcting my posture.

      Makes perfect sense when you think about it since how we use the different resonant cavities in our body and how we shape them determines the sound that comes out. In fact, the difference between being able to pronounce r and l has a lot to do with head tilt.

      Just watch a good voice impersonator to see

  • Some of my computer-assisted language learning (CALL) ideas on http://sites.google.com/site/yaoziyuan/ideas [google.com] can also benefit native speakers. For example:

    Orthography-Enhanced English (OEE) - Sometimes spelling a word based on its pronunciation can be hard, even for native speakers. For example, is it Lawrence or Lawrance? We can slightly change a word's visual form to help recall its correct spelling. For example, when the computer displays a word that has the -ance suffix (e.g. instance), it can lower the
  • We've been selling speech software since 1994 that seems to do what you are asking for. Basically we show a picture and say a word. phrase, sound, sentence, and an exaggerated version of the word. The student repeats the sounds and compares their version to ours. It's simple but it works. Most of our users are kids, but adults who have had strokes or head injuries use it too. Our website is at http://www.learningfundamentals.com/ [learningfundamentals.com] You can check out the software, without the recording part, in the Exercises
  • Several years ago I did some software consulting for a company here in San Luis Obispo that developed such products.
    They develop software aimed at people with speech difficulties due to learning disability, hearing loss, or stroke.

    http://www.learningfundamentals.com/ [learningfundamentals.com]

    It is a small outfit run by a very reasonable guy named John Scarry.

  • Improving Speech May Not be the Answer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by codermotor ( 4585 ) on Sunday November 01, 2009 @11:20PM (#29946888)

    "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).

  • 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 it can obviously inhibit options for jobs/other aspects of life etc.

    They've learned it's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool, rather than speak and prove it.

    Also, if they have no incentive, why are they clients? They must have SOMETHING that's motivating them.

  • I teach ESL at a K-5 elementary school. My school just started using Imagine Learning English - www.imaginelearning.com - which is really impressive and useful, though expensive. The program has
    many activities which show videos of mouths making different sounds. Be aware though that the program does not allow you to designate the activities a student works on - it gives an hourlong assessment on first use, and then works on areas where the student is deficient. If you login as a teacher, you can do any

  • Correcting a human's articulations is a really tough task for a machine.
    Interesting research on the topic has already been made, and the most interesting that I've seen lately is coming from KTH, in Sweden.

    ARTUR - the ARticulation TUtoR
    http://www.speech.kth.se/multimodal/ARTUR/ [speech.kth.se]

    I guess you could ask them about the availabitilty of their software, but you would need a lot of work to customize it for each of the participants.
    Or they could maybe give you an alternative....

  • Here are some useful links for people with speech and language difficulties:

    Twitter [twitter.com]
    MySpace [myspace.com]
    YouTube [youtube.com] (comments section)
    Text Messaging [wikipedia.org]

  • I realize this is slashdot not "soap opera storyline dot com", but still surprised no one noticed:

    My girlfriend

    A number of clients are guys

    some have no incentive to try and improve their speech.

    The boyfriend is always the last to know. Even if your girlfriend is doing absolutely nothing inappropriate with the guys at all, they might sign up solely to enjoy looking at her, or daydreaming or just purely platonic-ly bored/lonely.

    (If its not obvious, nothing personal intended dude, just having some fun with how the story was written)

  • "for a variety of reasons some have no incentive to try and improve their speech."

    Their problem isn't speech impairment (though they may have some), it's motivation. Don't coddle them with the games they like so much, it will only encourage them. As each of these problem children come to a session, present them with their discharge papers with a sticky note next to the signature line that says SIGN HERE, and a bag of dry dog food (kibbles to you folks in the UK) with a note that says "Get used to it, if you

  • *Disclaimer: I was a developer for this product*

    Say-N-Play [say-n-play.com] is a speech articulation practice game designed for children ages 4-9. It was developed in cooperation with Holly Strange, MS, CCC/SLP, a speech language pathologist and her team to provide a fun and engaging way for children to practice their speech, so they look forward to it each day.

    We partnered with the Stanford Research Institute to create technology capable of analyzing and scoring independent phonemes within an utterance. You can jus
  • First, teach them to understand Liverpuddlian.

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