Today, we will be talking about integrating apps into aphasia therapy to learn how we can use technology to support therapy and to support recovery. We will be talking both about the SLP’s use of technology and the client’s use of technology.
The learning objectives for this CEU course are that you will be able to explain what makes an app appropriate to use in aphasia therapy, list five apps suitable for use in aphasia therapy to treat impairments, and describe how features and built-in apps on the iPad® can help people with aphasia participate in life.
I would like to offer my disclosures. I am an owner and the app designer for Tactus Therapy Solutions and I also write for the blog and the resources pages. But I want to reassure you that I am an SLP and am committed to bringing you the best tools, so that our patients can have the fastest recovery and so we can provide evidence-based therapy for them.
More than a disclosure, I want to share with you my mission, and this is because aphasia is something I am very passionate about. I really want to use technology and I want you to be able to use technology to help people with aphasia get more therapy, get better, and to be less socially isolated. I strongly believe that technology can help in all of these areas. I have seen it happen. We are getting research that shows that it works. I think that as SLPs, we need to really understand the options that are available for ourselves and for our clients, in order to make appropriate recommendations.
It is no longer okay to say, “Well, I am not really a techy person” or “I think that the best therapy is face-to-face.” That may be true, but that is not always available to people. We have technology, it is a part of our lives, we are all carrying around our smartphones and using our computers, and so are many of our clients. They deserve to know what options they have available to them. So I want to thank you all for taking this course, so that you can learn more about it. I am going to give you a lot of information. We are barely going to scratch the surface of what you can do with technology and aphasia therapy, but hopefully it will lead you in the right direction to start incorporating it more into your practice.
