Speak Out October 2020 DIGITAL EDITION FINAL

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treatment protocol, applying key principles of motor learning (Maas et al., 2008; Wymbs et al., 2016) but capping daily screen time (Hair et al., 2020). Children are encouraged to engage sincerely with their practice, with bonus points and time credits for accurate performance. Being a main-stream video game, with varied challenges and levels, practice is “normalised’– their peers are playing the same style of games. 2. In-game real-time feedback on accuracy is provided through an automated pronunciation evaluation algorithm or by the carer’s manual key-press (Hair et al., 2019, 2020). 3. A web-based clinician interface (Figure 2) is for remotely sending exercises and updates to the child’s tablet, and receiving dose, dosage and progress data from the tablet. In addition, our custom-built offline automated speech analysis algorithms analyse children’s productions in detail for pronunciation and lexical stress errors, providing more detailed analysis for reporting (Shahin et al., 2019, 2020).

Our randomised clinical trial (Hair et al., 2020) showed that children (5 – 12 years of age, n = 10, 8 weeks of treatment) using Say Bananas! completed on average 82% of their dosage (target: 100 trials/session x 4 sessions/week), made equivalent gains to children in intensive face-to-face therapy, and all wanted to keep playing after the trial. Benefits to the speech pathology profession The system complements standard care. It does not replace the expertise of an SLP in assessment and goal setting; nor can it provide the cues and shaping to elicit a child’s first correct productions of a new sound (i.e. “pre- practice” in the motor learning framework). Say Bananas! has high value for engaging children in intensive high- fidelity “practice” at home to accelerate learning. Being self-contained, it saves time in designing and resourcing exercises and training carers; plus, it reaches under-served children constrained by geography or funding.

Figure 1. Say Bananas! child interface. Left: Monkey avatar navigating the jungle level. Centre: When the avatar catches a star, an exercise window appears with audio model and record buttons. A single word is shown but other stimuli can be presented. Right: Spending coins in the store.

Figure 2. The Say Bananas! clinician interface, showing the window for setting up a client's practice words and daily "dose".

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October 2020 | Speak Out