ICT Applications for People with Speech and Language Disorders

Professional article

Abstract

The digital technology used on smartphones and tablets provides entertainment and offers a number of additional materials and content needed in education. The possibility of using computers for educational and therapeutic purposes has enabled children and users with various health problems, motor impairments, and chronic diseases access to information, education, therapeutic work, monitoring and counselling. As part of the EU projects, the EU constituent countries have developed programmes and applications aimed at education. The project “ICT Competence Network for Innovative Services for Persons with Complex Communication Needs (ICT-AAC)” took place from March 2013 to March 2015 and was carried out by the University of Zagreb in collaboration with other stakeholders: associations and companies. The developed applications are applicable for educational and therapeutic purposes in education as a teaching method and a tool in treating speech and language disorders within speech therapy. In addition to education, there are also applications for communication purposes for people with complex communication needs. This paper briefly presents some of the ICT-AAC applications and their implementation in working with the intended users.