Mobile App Puts Brain Brain and Speech Therapy in Clients’ Pockets

by Andrea Atticks, MA, CCC-SLP

Haven’t heard of Constant Therapy, made by The Learning Corp? You have now, and it may well become your go-to cognitive and speech therapy app for working with clients with stroke, aphasia, traumatic brain injury and learning disabilities.

This iOS/Android-compatible app offers 70-plus dynamic therapy modules (100,000 exercises completed and growing) targeting speech, language and cognitive skills. The exercises include color photographs (not pictographs) and voice recordings. The app was developed by scientific advisors from Boston University and its Sargent College of health and rehabilitation sciences. Developers included experts in aphasia, learning disabilities and autism.

How it works

Clients can access a 15-day free trial of homework by logging in with the username and password created by the clinician. Clinicians can also monitor clients’ progress at home. (The company offers other plans for clinicians, educators and researchers interested in using the app for data and research.) Constant Therapy offers technical support via email and a toll-free phone number.

The app is easy to navigate for both the clinician and client. Tasks are arranged under two main categories: language and cognitive. Levels of difficulty range from the most basic (for example, spoken word comprehension, sound identification and rhyming) to high-level activities involving auditory comprehension and executive planning (for example, number patterns, map reading and voicemail messages). Constant Therapy uses a NeuroPerformance engine to increase or decrease the level of task difficulty based on client performance metrics.

As clients consistently hit performance milestones, the app introduces new, more challenging tasks. The new stimulus items keep clients engaged, motivated and progressing toward meeting specific goals.

An outcomes tool

Constant Therapy continuously tracks your client’s progress—a helpful tool for planning treatment and writing objectives. Three tabs on the home screen supply comprehensive data about the client’s progress, performance and usage for each of 60-plus therapy modules.

• The summary tab displays the number of items that the client has completed, a calendar that indicates when and how much time the client has practiced, and the client’s performance across days. The clinician can modify settings for the client—you can, for example, repeat directions for each task item and set hand-dominance preference.
• The tasks tab provides access to all of the language and cognitive task modules. The clinician can adjust the item count and difficulty level within each task. Clinicians can also determine and set the client’s baseline data.
• The reports tab displays a description of the task, the modalities targeted (language, for example, or auditory comprehension), and the client’s final data compared with his or her baseline data. Clinicians can view the client’s percentage accuracy, response time, number of items completed and level for each exercise by day or by week, in graph or table form. This data display also helps clients see their progress easily.

Although the data and tracking features of this app are noteworthy, it is truly the range of exercises and the ability to provide clients with unlimited carryover exercises that make this app a standout.

Author Andrea Atticks, MA, CCC-SLP, is an associate professor and clinical supervisor at Loyola University in Maryland. Reach her at ahatticks@loyola.edu.