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Tufts Student Creates App to Make Speech Therapy More Effective
By Catherine Groux
Posted August 07, 2012 01:31 PM
A college student created an app to assist with speech therapy.When Tufts University student Jack McDermott was a child, his stutter led him to seek speech therapy from the time he was 4 years old until he turned 17, The MetroWest Daily News reports. While he found his speech therapy to be helpful, he quickly realized that it lacked the necessary level of engagement and effectiveness.
For this reason, the allied health degree seeker created Speech4Good in early 2011, a smartphone app that strives to enhance speech therapy for those with language issues. Using this tool, individuals can record their voice when they are practicing their speech exercises. These recordings are saved chronologically with notes and feedback, which can then be emailed to a therapist.
While McDermott initially did not know much about apps, he read three or four books on creating them and spent hours reading blogs on the subject, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. From there, he strived to find the processes that could best help people's speech and incorporate them into technology.
"We didn't want to change things that worked in speech therapy because they already worked," McDermott told the Chronicle. "What we simply did is we took proven processes in speech therapy and put them on an iPad and iPod."
Given his speech issues, McDermott feels the creation of the app has helped him come full circle and appreciate the opportunity he has to help other individuals with similar challenges.
