Evidence for "Aided effects": how SentenceShaper helps people to create better spoken utterances

Below is a brief summary of research studies about SentenceShaper's "Aided effects," that is, about the ways in which speech produced on SentencerShaper may be superior to spontaneous speech. These studies were conducted at the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Philadelphia, PA. Note: Some of the studies described below used an early prototype of SentenceShaper named "CS" (short for "Communication System").

Aided effects in retelling of silent videos

In the first study employing the system (Linebarger, Schwartz, Romania, Kohn, Stephens, 2000), six people with nonfluent aphasia were trained to use SentenceShaper, and used the program in their homes for approximately 15 hours. After this practice, narratives were elicited on the same topics with and without SentenceShaper. The aided narratives (those produced on the system) were longer and more grammatically structured than the unaided versions for five of the six participants, despite the fact that the version of the system used in this study provided no word-finding help at all. For two of these participants, the contrast between aided and unaided narratives was quite striking. For example, one participant described a particular scene as follows when asked to retell the story without using SentenceShaper:

The, the maid, the maid, the maid, uh, uh, upstair and she, uh, the maid upstairs and 'scuse me' and um … go around but now uh the …. The policeman, she she?, no, the man, two men, and the uh, oh, she, uh, her, she…knock them out, knock them out, um hum, knock them out, two men

But when this participant was using SentenceShaper, she was able to describe the same event in the video as follows:

The man goes around them. She did not do it. The nurse goes around the baby carriage. The policeman, she fights the, the two men.

Another participant described a different scene as follows in the unaided condition (without using SentenceShaper):

Ooh! A fish! Ah, water" and….uh mmm and attendant, "here," and bumped his head. "Oh boy, oh my hand, my hand, my hand.

Her description produced with the help of SentenceShaper was much clearer:

The boy and the fishmonger is taking the fish. The boy hit his hand.

Aided effects in functional messages

A second study explored the use of a portable handheld computer to which the person with aphasia individual himself can transfer spoken utterances he has created on SentenceShaper. This handheld computer is then used to assist communication in real life situations, either by replaying his recorded speech or using these recordings to cue "live" speech. Preliminary data suggest that this can be effective, and a qualitative study found that participants strongly favored the self-cueing technique.See the research report for more details.

This page is derived from our Research Report; click here to view the entire report, or right-click on this link and then choose "Save target as..." (The report is in PDF format.) More information about these research studies and the scientists and clinicians involved in them may be found on the grants page; full references to articles cited above are on the publications page.

You may also wish to read the page describing research on the treatment effects of our aphasia software SentenceShaper.