# Have Any Experience With Aphasia Aids?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-experience-with-aphasia-aids/530390>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 25, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-experience-with-aphasia-aids/530390 "2010-02-25T15:14:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ethelbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ethelbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethelbert)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-experience-with-aphasia-aids/530390/1 "2010-02-25T15:14:36Z")

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My mom recently had a stroke and still suffers from aphasia. (My prior [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=544876))

I met last night with the speech therapist and a Dynavox sales consultant about an aphasia aid. These are the ones they showed me;

[http://www.dynavoxtech.com/products/xpress/](http://www.dynavoxtech.com/products/xpress/)  
[http://www.dynavoxtech.com/products/m3/](http://www.dynavoxtech.com/products/m3/)

Think Stephen Hawking. They are interesting, but rather bulky. I notice there is an app for the IPhone/IPod/IPad at [‎SmallTalk Aphasia Female on the App&nbsp;Store](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smalltalk-aphasia/id310102858?mt=8)

I am quite frankly a little skeptical that my mother will use any of these. The remote control has always been a challenge for her and the stroke has made that any better. However, I would love to hear from anybody with any experience or anecdotes about these (or any other similar) devices.

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**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-experience-with-aphasia-aids/530390/2 "2010-02-25T16:07:04Z")

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Calling **blinkie** , calling **blinkie** , come in **blinkie**! 🙂

You can download a demo of [Wivik](http://www.wivik.com/)’s virtual keyboard and play with it. I’ve been testing it out for a family member who needs one of these gadgets, too. The predictive spelling is very cool, allowing you to compose sentences with just a few keystrokes with a feature that turns the text into speech, if you like.

If your mom would rather use a Mac, check out [Asstiveware](http://assistiveware.com/infovox_ivox.php#features). They have [lots of videos](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=assistiveware&search_type=&aq=0&oq=assistivew) showing how the stuff works on YouTube.