Let Apps Help You Learn to Speak Again After Injury

The brain is one of the most important organs. An injury to the brain, whether by a violent blow, severe sports, or a vehicular accident, can have serious consequences. Also, some medical conditions, like strokes and brain tumors, can cause brain injury. One of the most common outcomes of an injury to the brain is a partial or complete loss of the ability to speak. Slurred speech (dysarthria), an inability to use or understand words (aphasia), and the inability to generate speech (dysphasia), are common speech impairments sufferers of brain injury experience. As a result, speech therapy aims to help patients recover speech and improve communication. That said, therapists can help patients achieve great results by using apps. The Constant Therapy app, for instance, was developed by speech-pathologists to help patients regain speech and cognitive functions. It contains hundreds of thousands of exercises customizable to individual recovery goals.

Besides, speech difficulty brought on by brain injury does not only affect the ability to use words. Social competence can also be negatively affected by brain injury. Communication difficulties resulting from brain injuries can make it difficult for patients to thrive in social settings. Recovering patients can learn practical skills for conversation and appropriate behavior again by using an app. The Let’s be Social app, for example, targets basic social language skills using interactive lessons. This app can help patients relearn meeting and greeting people, joining groups, apologizing, accepting responsibility, and taking criticism, among other useful social skills.

Finally, victims of brain injury are not the only group of people that need speech therapy techniques to improve their communication skills. Children who have autism, cerebral palsy, hearing impairments, and other developmental delays will benefit from speech therapy. Usually, speech-language pathologists devise a variety of exercises based on individual child needs. As such, articulation therapy, oral feeding and swallowing therapy, and language intervention activities are some of the exercises these patients will require. Therapists can help kids be smarter and learn quickly by using speech therapy apps. To this end, Articulation Station is a comprehensive articulation app developed to help kids learn to pronounce and practice words and sentences. Also, in-app practice activities like matching games and customizable flashcards are designed to help kids learn and recognize words.