Preliminary results from a longitudinal study of a tablet-based speech therapy game

Abstract

We previously developed a tablet-based speech therapy game called Apraxia World to address barriers to treatment and increase child motivation during therapy. In this study, we examined pronunciation improvements, child engagement over time, and caregiver evaluation performance while using our game. We recruited ten children to play Apraxia World at home during two four-week treatment blocks, separated by a two-week break; nine of ten have completed the protocol at time of writing. In the treatment blocks, children's utterances were evaluated either by caregivers or an automated pronunciation framework. Preliminary analysis suggests that children made significant therapy gains with Apraxia World, even though caregivers evaluated pronunciation leniently. We also collected a corpus of child speech for offline examination. We will conduct additional analysis once all participants complete the protocol.