SimpTell (Semi-Independent Interactive Multimodal Production Training of ELLipsen) is an evidence-based and web-based therapy method for people with chronic aphasia. Aphasia is a language disorder resulting from brain injury. In one type of aphasia, Broca’s aphasia, there are mainly problems with speaking in sentences. For people with Broca’s aphasia, speaking in sentences is strenuous and time-consuming. Moreover, they usually do not manage to produce sentences flawlessly.
Improving everyday communication through compensation
With SimpTell, people with chronic Broca’s aphasia can intensively practice simplifying their utterances into a kind of telegram style, consisting of ellipses (e.g. Me stroke. Aphasia. Short utterances only. Fast and still clear). In this way, the sentence production problems are avoided, or compensated. Previous scientific research has found that elliptical style to an improvement in everyday communication as it makes it easier to convey an understandable message quickly.
From academic development to clinical application
SimpTell has been developed and scientifically researched in the academic setting, within Radboud University (e.g. Language in Interaction consortium). Logoclicks B.V. wants to valorise SimpTell into a marketable application, so that SimpTell becomes and remains clinically available for people with aphasia and their speech and language therapists, preferably in the form of blended care.
Objective of the current project
In this project, SimpTell is programmed in a future-proof development environment. Automatic speech recognition will also be added to the application. In this way, the academic version of SimpTell is converted into a scalable and practically applicable version for people with aphasia and their therapists. The bridge between the academy and the market is also strengthened by the fact that the data generated with SimpTell (with informed consent) can be used for (future) scientific research at Radboud University.
