Grants involving the SentenceShaper software

Our software has been developed and studied under funding from the National Institutes of Health and other organizations, in the following projects.

Computer-based mapping therapy for agrammatism (1995-1999)

Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01 DC02377). Principal Investigator: Dr. Marcia Linebarger, Unisys Corporation. Consortium Principal Investigator: Dr. Myrna Schwartz, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute. Other members of the team included Ted Kantner, Dr. Susan Kohn, Lauren Leiter, Chris Macks, Diane Stephens, and John Romania. In this project, SentenceShaper (originally called CS) and a second language therapy program were developed as part of a research program to explore language rehabilitation in aphasia.

Promoting Access to the Internet in Aphasia: An Augmentative Communication System for E-mail (2000)

Funded by the Albert Einstein Society. Principal Investigators: Dr. Marcia Linebarger & Dr. Myrna Schwartz, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute. Also involved were John Romania and Ted Kantner. In this project, SentenceShaper was augmented to interface with Outlook Express, allowing spoken productions created on the system to be sent as email attachments, using a simple interface designed for users with impaired reading and writing abilities. The system was piloted successfully with four aphasic individuals.

Cognitive Rehabilitation Research Network (Aphasia project: 2000-2003)

Funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24 HD39631). Principal Investigators: Dr. John Whyte & Dr. Myrna Schwartz, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute. Consultant: Dr. Marcia Linebarger, Psycholinguistic Technologies, Inc. Other members of the team included Roberta Brooks, Monica Chun, and Megan Bartlett. The major goal of this grant was to establish a regional Medical Rehabilitation Research Network to conduct clinical trials of cognitive rehabilitation interventions. One of these interventions involved the use of SentenceShaper by aphasic individuals participating in conversation groups. Participants used the system to send spoken email and create productions for personal web pages on an internal website. Impact on language measures, functional communication, and psychological well-being was assessed.

AAC Processing Support for Spoken Language in Aphasia (2003-2008)

Funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01 HD043991). Principal Investigator : Dr. Myrna Schwartz, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute. Consortium Principal Investigator : Dr. Marcia Linebarger, Psycholinguistic Technologies, Inc. Other members of the team include Megan Bartlett, Ruth Fink, Jennifer Lowery, and John Romania. The purpose of this currently funded study is to extend the functionality of SentenceShaper by making it possible for the aphasic user to transfer messages appropriate to specific situations from SentenceShaper onto a handheld computer, which can used to supplement or cue language production in real-time, real-world communication.

Analysis and Remediation of Language Production (2003-2008)

Funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01 DC05629). Principal Investigator: Dr. Rita Berndt, University of Maryland School of Medicine. Consortium Principal Investigator: Dr. Marcia Linebarger, Psycholinguistic Technologies, Inc. Other members of the team include Denise McCall, Telana Virata, Deborah Dahl, and John Romania. The purpose of this currently funded project is to examine the efficacy of SentenceShaper and a second computer program, SentenceShaper Therapist™, for the remediation of aphasic language disorders, and to use data collected in these treatment studies to investigate the nature of the underlying disorder.