At a workshop organised by Outloud in Tampere recently, a group of therapists and researchers who specialize in childhood hearing impairment explored, discussed and even witnessed some of what Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT) has to offer. This approach is founded on maximizing the astonishing auditory learning potential offered to children by early identification and intervention combined with state of the art hearing technology. 

The other defining feature of AVT is putting the children’s parents at the center of the therapy program, by offering them regular coaching sessions, together with their child, so that they are the people who make the difference. With intensive support in communicating, playing, talking, singing, and doing things together, they can bring their child into the listening and speaking world that surrounds them.

Elizabeth Tyszkiewicz, an experienced LSLS Cert AVT from the UK, led a two-day course, with the participation of some delightful young cochlear implant users. There is now strong interest in Finland, and some ideas for training initiatives were discussed. It will be important to have a general information meeting to which families, pre-school workers, teachers and others are invited, so that people can decide for themselves what they think the benefits of AVT may be.

Here is one opinion from an experienced parent in the UK: “AVT is a fun, intensive approach that requires a collaborative effort from therapist, parents, and others involved with the child. At times, it felt quite daunting, but has certainly paid off for us.  It can be integrated into everyday life without much effort as it is an excellent method of developing and improving understanding and communication.”.

To find out more,  check these websites: www.avuk.org,  www.agbell.org, www.jtc.org, www.evdcweb.org or, even better, keep an eye on the Outloud website for the next AVT event in Finland!

Written by: Elizabeth Tyszkiewicz

ps. Two day intensive course will be organized 26th-27th of January 2018 in Tampere

We are excited to tell you all that Outloud is developing a singing training application to help aphasia patients. Outloud is proud to be part of the research project with the University of Helsinki. During this project Outloud develops a vocal training application for aphasia patients. With this application aphasia patients participating in choir training can continue to practice singing at home.

The application by Outloud is developed to support training and will be downloaded to trainees tablet devices. The application records the produced singing and analyzes its acoustic features (pitch, rhythm and intensity) and provides motivating feedback. All this will help aphasia patients to continue singing and practicing.

According to studies singing is a highly stimulating and versatile activity for the brain, combining vocal-motor, auditory, linguistic, cognitive, emotional, and social brain processes. Compared to speech, singing induces more extensive and bilateral brain activation, engaging especially the right hemisphere.

Outloud's application will be tested and piloted with aphasia patients and healthy people. Testing is done together with the researchers. With the application you can practice songs almost like karaoke style. In this project Outloud is participating in a research study of the effect of music-based rehabilitation in aphasia patients. The research is carried out in cooperation with the Helsinki University Hospital, Aphasia and Stroke Association and Finnish Brain Association.

Past collaboration with researchers and Outloud's expertise in developing voice-controlled games, voice analysis applications, and audio libraries makes Outloud a great partner for the project.

The project is part of the research project (2017-2020) of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Helsinki funded by the Academy of Finland. The project also contributes to the top projects funded by the Academy of Finland, which aim to find effective solutions to promote well-being and health through research.

Hey SLPeeps, hope you're doing well! Our team has been working on two new apps for speech therapy, and today we're gonna tell you about one of them. Ladies and gentlemen, Outloud proudly presents Citymals!

Citymals is a voice-activated game, and the idea is simple: when the user produces a noise, the scene changes. The objects start moving, animals jump out, the sun rises and goes down at night... all thanks to the power of your voice! Completing level after level, you discover more and more objects hiding on the screen — there's so many things that it won't be boring, we promise!

The goal off the app is to encourage small kids to produce sounds and play with their voices. Thus, this app is a tool for SLPs to use in the sessions: help the kid practice the sounds of different pitch, volume, long vowels or consonants... it's up to you!

Here's more about the app's compatibility:
- Citymals is compatible iPad;
- The app is also compatible with iOS 8.0 or a more recent one.
- We recommend playing Citymals with kids who are 5 years old or younger;

Download Citymals from AppStore here (price: $3.99) and teach a kid to speak outloud!

Hey, looks like the ASHA 2016 convention week is over now which feels weird! All the Outloud Apps team has been waiting for it for a few months, then during these couple of days so many things happened that it felt like eternity (in a good way, of course)... And now it's over, so all that's left is to recap (and decide who goes to ASHA 2017 in LA).