All The Things We Love About Speech Therapy With Adults

This blog is about all the things we at Sanapsis Love about Speech Therapy with Adults.

NOW YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO (or introducing SANAPSIS PRO, with three languages in one app for professional use)

April 13, 2021Nana Lehtinen

Have you ever wanted to use Sanapsis in a different language than on the one you have on your iPad? Have you noticed how our new Sanapsis+ for patients asks you to choose a language when you first launch the app? And when the time is right for your bilingual patient to switch to a different language, how easy it is to switch back and forth between languages in Sanapsis+? (Hint, tap settings icon, choose language, and hit save!).

Well, you are about to find out how easy and swift switching between English, Finnish, and Swedish can be for your Sanapsis for professional use too!

We have been working behind the scenes on the original version of Sanapsis to streamline our family of apps. Currently, our apps include three language versions of Sanapsis as separate apps: English, Finnish and Swedish. We also have a demo version of Sanapsis for professional use, SanapsisLite, available for free download. And this year, we added a new app, Sanapsis+, for patients to use at home independently. That is a lot of apps.

To streamline our selection, we have decided to combine all language versions into one app, SanapsisPro. This means that now you can download only one app for professional use and have all the content in English, Finnish and Swedish in the same app! And what makes this even better is that while adding languages, we also managed to reduce the size SanapsisPro takes up on your iPad. Kind of cool!

Unfortunately, this means we have to say farewell to our Sanapsis Suomi and Sanapsis Svenska as separate apps. If you have downloaded them before, you can absolutely keep using them for the foreseeable future on your device. However, you will not be able to download them again from the AppStore if you happen to remove them from your device. Also, all updates will from now on only happen on SanapsisPro.

If you have recently purchased Sanapsis Suomi or Sanapsis Svenska from the AppStore, send us a message. We will see if we can help make the transition to SanapsisPro smoother for you!

Sanapsis+ is here!

March 05, 2021Nana Lehtinen

We are delighted to announce the arrival of our app for independent home practice for people with acquired speech and language challenges!

With Sanapsis+, patients can work at their own pace on word-level exercises at home. We have put a lot of effort and thought into bringing you a user-friendly app with relevant content for your patient to work with - but without restricting the user experience to a one-dimensional game-like experience.

Every step of using Sanapsis+ has been designed with the needs of our patients in mind. We have created an open-ended experience for users to stay in control while still providing feedback on their work. There are four different exercises in Sanapsis+.

Listening

These exercises help your patient to identify the single words they hear. There are four images on the screen. After a brief pause, the app names one of the images. The goal is to tap the image that corresponds to that word. If the answer is correct, a green frame appears around the image. If the answer is incorrect, a red frame appears around the image. Simple! Patients can listen to the target word again by tapping the megaphone button. When they tap any of the pictures, they hear the name of that picture.

Speaking

In this exercise, patients work on word recall and speaking by naming pictures they see on screen. They also record and listen to their own voice and speech. No feedback is provided in this exercise as patients get to evaluate their work themselves!

There are multiple levels of clues embedded in the exercise. To listen to the whole word recording of the target word, patients can tap the image. They can tap the question mark for a written clue to see the letters revealed - one letter for each tap. For an auditive hint, patients can tap the megaphone icon. All words can be recorded as many times as needed before moving to the next one.

Reading

In this reading exercise, there is an image and four words on the screen. Patients read the words and tap on the one that corresponds to the image. When the answer is correct, the button turns green. If they tap the wrong word, it turns red. It is always possible to try again as many times as needed, no rush! Patients can listen to the names of all images by tapping them.

Writing

In the writing exercise, there is an image and a keyboard on the screen. The goal is to use the keyboard to type the name of the image. When correct letters are typed, they appear on the line. After two incorrect tries, a hint appears, showing the following letter. When the word is completed correctly, the background turns green. It is possible to write the word again by tapping the refresh button on the keyboard.

In all exercises, patients move forward at their own pace by tapping the arrow in the right corner. They can also go back to the previous word by tapping the back arrow on the left.

Saving the best for last!

After the last task in an exercise, you see our most favorite feature! On the final screen, patients see an idea of how to practice the same skills they just worked on in the app in their everyday environment. These ideas correspond to the skill patients worked on and the category they chose to use for this particular session.

Ideas for working outside the app range from simple independent work at home (reading, home: Browse through a newspaper. How many ads can you find?), to getting out and about (reading, surroundings: "Pay attention to street signs in your community. Which words do you recognize?"), and to work around the house with a loved one ("naming, clothes: Next time you do the laundry, name all the items as you put them in the dryer or as you hang them up to dry. Take turns!").

We are super excited about this feature and hope you are too! After all, the real world is where the magic of communication happens! We are also looking forward to hearing your best tips and ideas on working on language skills in the everyday environment. Send us your idea and it might be featured in the app!

Sanapsis+, coming soon!

November 25, 2020Nana Lehtinen

We are super happy to introduce a new family member, Sanapsis+ - an app for working on speech and communication skills at home.

Sanapsis+, coming early 2021 to AppStore and GooglePlay!

Like all our apps, Sanapsis+ is designed for people with acquired speech and communication difficulties due to neurological deficits. These can include aphasia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, or a neurological illness.

With Sanapsis+, you can enhance active communication in all language areas: Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing.

In addition to specific language exercises, Sanapsis+ provides ideas and guidance on working on speech and communication skills at home, in our everyday surroundings. After all, the real world is where the magic of communication happens! We are looking forward to sharing Sanapsis+ with you soon!

New content for Sanapsis Svenska

March 30, 2020Nana Lehtinen

How are you doing? It sure is turning out to be a very different spring than what we were expecting. I hope you are staying healthy and things are falling into place for you and your loved ones (maybe slowly, but hopefully surely).

For us, this has been a busy few weeks. We have been setting up way more telepractice appointments than planned and helping our patients navigate this new environment for many. As such we have has a chance to use Sanapsis in teletherapy more than usual and it has been a blast! Hopefully you have also found ways to make use of the materials and ideas in Sanapsis during these times. We would love to hear how it is going! Please reach out via this site or comment below. Also, please reach out if you need assistance in figuring out a good setup for you, how to share your iPad screen etc. We are here and always happy to help.

In other news: We are exited to bring more exercises to our Swedish speaking friends! Our update for Sanapsis Svenska (1.5) is ready to download from the AppStore. This free update includes 5 new exercises to be used online or in person with your patients. There is new stuff in three categories: Speech Production, Comprehension, Writing and Perseveration.

For Speech Production we have two new exercises: Descriptive sentence / Bilda en beskrivande mening and Give Instructions / Ge Instruktioner.

Descriptive sentence is kind of like a talkative sister of our earlier exercise Precise sentence. In Precise sentence you show your patient a picture and ask them to provide a simple, straightforward informative sentence, e.g There are cakes on the table. In Descrptive sentence you also get a image prompt, but ask your patient to produce a sentence with as much detail and adjectives as possible, to truly describe the photo. There is an example sentence hidden under the panel you can use as a general guideline of what the sentence could look like. You can find more information on why and how to use this task with your patients under the info button in the right lower corner.

Bilda en beskrivande mening, screen you see when launching the exercise

Bilda en beskrivande mening, with example

Give instructions is a text based exercise for speech production. Here you are presented with a prompt to describe a sequential task. There are two levels. Level 1 has familiar tasks where your patient is asked to produce instructions on how to complete these tasks, such as Explain how to light a fire in a fireplace. Tasks on level 2 has the same idea, but with a twist. Prompts on level 2 include more complex situations and a component of problem solving, such as Your neighbor locked himself out of the house. Tell him what to do. Below you can see examples of both levels. You can find more information on why and how to use these prompts with your patients under the info button in the right lower corner.

Update 1.5 for Sanapsis Svenska includes one new exercise for our Comprehension category. Follow instructions / Följ instruktionerna is a task where your patient moves the images on the screen following prompts you give them. This task is best used when facing each other at a table where you can read the upside down text on the top of the screen and the patient can manipulate the images. In settings you can switch it up to a reading task. This will switch the text to the bottom of the screen and the patient can follow the prompt while reading. You can also find this exercise in our Reading category in our next update.

Följ instruktionerna as a comprehension task when seated on opposite sides of a table

In Writing-category we are moving to the keyboard! This update adds a word level copying task, Copy words using the keyboard / Kopiera ordet med tangentbordet. On screen you see a word. Tapping the line pops up a keyboard on screen so you can copy away! If you prefer a bigger keyboard, you can connect a bluetooth keyboard to your iPad and use that. In settings you can see the familiar categories from where the words to be copied are drawn from. Mix and match to meet your patients needs. Ideas on how to make use of these categories can be found under the info button.

Kopiera ordet med tangentbordet, settings for instructions and categories.

In our Perseveration category you are already familiar with tasks using letters and numbers. Now we are introducing a new member to that group, Repetitive naming, pictures / Seriell benämning, bilder. Here you will see images and ask your patient to name them serially while working on strategies to reduce the tendency to persevere. Look for more in depth description on how and when to use these exercises under the info button! And while you are at it, you will discover that some of the familiar categories are presented here too, along with options on how many images per screen and how many objects represented in those images. In this example I have chosen to have only category (Fruit and Vegetable) active and I have 9 images per screen with 2 objects, orange and coconut. I have tapped some of them to reveal the written name, easy to hide by tapping again.

Seriell benämning, bilder, with examples

That is our update 1.5 for Sanapsis Svenska! Hope you enjoy it! Remember, updating Sanapsis is and always will be free. Hope to hear from you soon. Remember we are happy to answer any questions you might have. Stay well.

It's time to take social connections online, not to let go

March 16, 2020Nana Lehtinen

Hi there.

I am sure you are familiar with the COVID-19 and all the precautions happening all around us right know. It may feel scary as everything is happening so fast. However, it is amazing to see people around the world coming together, determined to beat this thing.

As for for many things, also for speech therapy sessions, this means staying put at home and going online. Namely switching from face-to-face speech session to telepractice, most often conducted via videoconferencing. For many patients online video calls are a familiar platform. For some, this can be a new thing all together. For us SLPs, as familiar and safe communication partners to our patients, this can be an excellent opportunity to open up new and necessary communication channels.

While isolated, many patients are forced to learn new skills and find new ways to connect with their loved ones. Many necessary appointments are also moving online like visits with doctors and nurses. At a time like this, I can not think of a better goal for speech therapy than picking up those new skills and experiences!

If you mostly do your speech sessions face-to-face, taking the leap for telepractise can feel daunting. There are a lot of things to consider to make things safe and secure and making sure you follow the necessary guidelines. These vary from country to country and between states so make sure to check what these requirements mean for you and your practice. With some patients and caregivers it will take some convincing to give telepractice a try (when everything is changing around you, putting speech therapy “on hold until things settle down” can feel like a good option), others will jump at the opportunity. However, if you and your patients jump through the hoops of getting everything ready for telepractice now, it is much easier to keep going if things drag out than to start building up again after some time has passed. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing how long this situation will be ongoing.

When you have your knots and bolts sorted out, agreements signed and patients ready to go, you need to figure out materials and ideas for conducting a session. You have spent a lot of time getting things this far and it sure takes time to get traditional materials transformed into digital form too. And you have that session coming up today, not next week! But fear not, I have something to help you get started.

Lovely set up by Kyllösen kommunikaatio.

Yes, of course I am talking about Sanapsis! Tons of ready to go materials and ideas to implement in your sessions. If you have used Sanapsis before in your face-to-face sessions with the patient, even better! Now there is something they know and are familiar with right there on their computer screen, in a new and different situation. If you are using your iPad for telepractice, share your screen, launch Sanapsis and fire away! If you prefer using your computer (I do!) connect your iPad to your computer, mirror your iPad to your computer (I like to use QuickTime Player, learn how here or here) and share your computer screen (check out the lovely set up from Kyllösen kommunikaatio. Thanks for the pic, Paula!). Easy as pie!

In a time like this, when social isolation is more or less mandatory, there is true power in making and maintaining connections with the people around us. Being there to go through the jitters together with our patients can make a huge difference. We should all embrace the opportunity of being there for our patients with communication difficulties as a low stress online connection. After all, we can help them to be able to connect with others with confidence after practicing these skills with you, their trusted communication professional.

To help you to get over this hurdle, we are offering Sanapsis (English) for free for the rest of March. If you are not familiar with Sanapsis yet, you can Sanapsis Lite for a sneak peak of what we have to offer in all three languages, English, Finnish and Swedish. We hope to be able to enrich your speech therapy sessions with adult patients by providing materials to be used together with your patient, in person or online. Never lose that connection!

Stay healthy. Help keep others healthy. We can do this.

Introducing Sanapsis Lite

February 12, 2020Nana Lehtinen

We have a new baby in the family! Join us in welcoming our latest arrival, Sanapsis Lite. This new app offers a sneak peek in all of our language versions, Sanapsis (English), Sanapsis Suomi and Sanapsis Svenska.

Sanapsis Lite consists of two exercises in each category: Production, Comprehension, Reading, Writing, Semantics and Perseveration. These exercises come in different languages to provide a feel of the possibilities Sanapsis has to offer to all users in their own language. The exercises include all the information and ideas in instructions but have limited content for material. There will always be more to explore in the full version in your language!

Head over to the AppStore of your choice (links below) to download a copy today.

Sanapsis Lite in the Swedish AppStore

Sanapsis Lite In the US AppStore

Sanapsis Lite in the United Kingdom Appstore

Sanapsis Lite in the Australian AppStore

Sanapsis Lite in the Finnish AppStore

Sanapsis Svenska is getting some love with a new update

November 22, 2019Nana Lehtinen

Sanapsis Svenska just got an update (1.4) and is now better than ever! We launched two new exercises, one in our Production category (Jag vill…) and one in Reading category (Ordna Berättelsen). Can you spot the newbies below?

Production category now has six exercises in total. The new I want to.. (Jag vill..) -exercise brings a new challenge to the mix. With this exercise you can challenge your patient to make choices and express opinions about different activities. Also useful for someone who has a tendency to persevere in their output - using a sentence frame with varied endings can be used to boost flexibility too!

Reading category now has seven exercises on multiple levels of reading. The new Organize instructions (Ordna berättelsen) brings along meaningful reading and logic deduction based on what you read. On screen you will see 4-7 sentences (based on the settings you choose). These sentences contain step by step instructions to completing a task (e.g. hanging a painting, changing sheets, buying flowers from the florist, change light bulb, making a snowman). Organizing these instructions to form a coherent answer to the question: How do you …. (hang a painting, change sheets, buy flowers, change a light bulb, make a snowman…) provides deductive sentence level reading, a working memory challenge and the reward of reading the instructions to your therapist to make sure they make sense. Fun, huh?

Let us know what you think!

We are always happy to hear from you at sanapsis@puheklinikka.net or via this website.

Update 3.1: Sanapsis and Sanapsis Suomi

September 04, 2019Nana Lehtinen

Hello all you lovely people!

We have been improving Sanapsis and Sanapsis Suomi side by side this summer and release 3.1 for both apps is here. For this one our focus has been on Production category, but as minds tend to wander you might find some additions scattered across other categories as well. I will give a quick overview of the heftier additions here and hope you enjoy exploring more in the app on your own.

First up, our Naming exercises. We get a lot of very nice feedback of our photos, so we decided to add some more. Altogether 227 images have been added to Naming (nouns) and Naming (actions) and I want to. As always the images that pop up on your screen here are randomized to keep things interesting. This means that the new images will be mixed in with the familiar ones and you will see them popping up as you go. Hope you like them!

When using Organize a sentence you will come across new items as well. We added 100 new sentences! Evenly distributed across levels so remember to hit that info button and adjust levels.

Precise sentences gained 91 new tasks and its counterpart Descriptive sentences gained 70. Enjoy both!

As always, we appreciate feedback, suggestions for improvement and of course just hearing about you and how you are doing with Sanapsis. Let us know at sanapsis (a) puheklinikka.net!

More to like in Sanapsis Svenska!

August 21, 2019Nana Lehtinen

We just launched our first official update to our Sanapsis Svenska (1.3), yay! To celebrate, this post will mostly be about the newly localized exercises for Swedish. So, if you are using the English or Finnish version of Sanapsis, mostly old news. But not to despair - we think one can always use a refresher. Maybe you have not been taking these exercises for a spin with your patients lately and could use some motivation to make more use of the stuff you already own. Let’s find out!

The update comes with three new exercises to our Swedish version of Sanapsis: Discussion starters, Build a question and Sentence and picture. Old favorites with many possibilities!

Let’s first have a look at Sentence and Picture / Lause ja kuva / Mening och bild. You see this one in our Reading- section, right up there in the right hand corner of the menu.

Sentence and Picture / Lause ja kuva / Mening och bild - exercise comes with two levels. Level one shows an image and two, three or four sentences, depending on the settings. Ask your patient to choose the one that matches the image. On level 1 the sentences are rather simple and very different from each other. On level 2 the setup is the same but sentences are more abstract or semantically closer. As the patient chooses a sentence the text changes color but no feedback is given by the app. It’s up to you to decide how to make the most of the material in your session.

Some of our exercises are provided to you in multiple categories. Mostly for easy access but also because we do not want you to get stuck with just one way to use the materials you have at your disposal. Creativity and flexibility, that’s what it takes to become a fluent Sanapsis user! One of these exercises is Build a question / Valitse kysymyssana / Välj frågeordet and you can find it in categories Production and Reading.

Build a question looks very similar to the Sentence and Picture we just introduced. So, if you know your way around that, this one is an easy step. Here you see an image, a sentence that lacks a question word and two, three or four question words. You know it by now, right? Yes! You ask your patient to choose a question word that completes the sentence. Under the info button you see in the lower right hand corner you can always find all the settings and more info on how and when to use this exercise. Nice.

For the next one we are going to looking at categories Semantics and Reading.

In both of these categories you will find a new exercise: Discussion starters / Keskustelunkäynnistäjät / Diskussioninledningar. This is a simple but powerful exercise. It comes with two levels (settings under the info button, as usual). Level 1 has straightforward questions you can mostly answer with one or two words. I love using this when introducing using AAC-methods, great for writing down some options for the patient to point at or even make use of pictures and drawings! Level 2 comes with more complex questions that invite the patient to tell more. If you hand the iPad over to your patient and let them choose the topic to discuss with you, you create a perfect place to work on making initiatives and asking for more info.

That it our update for Sanapsis Svenska 1.3. If you haven’t yet, you can download it for your iPad from the Appstore. Buy once, get all future updates for free (no in-app purchases, ever)!

Play around, invite your patients to play around and most importantly - let us know what you think! We love hearing what works, what could use improvement, where we have missed a typo or what you would like to see added. You can always contact us via this website or send an email to sanapsis@puheklinikka.net (in English, Finnish or Swedish). Looking forward to hearing from you!

New icons

August 19, 2019Nana Lehtinen

Now that we have three language versions of Sanapsis, we thought it would be fun to have three different icons to display at AppStore and on your iPad. We are still in love with our color-scheme (orange, gray and white) and decided to keep things in line with that. As we also want to avoid getting mixed up with language learning apps *think flags for languages* so sticking to our trio was the obvious solution. All our apps are a collaboration of our trilingual team. However, we do play favorites..

Sanapsis

Meet Sanapsis, our original English version. You could think of it as our firstborn (twin A) if you were so inclined. This one has seen a lot of testing under different circumstances and has held up rather nicely! Plays well with others and is currently under supervision of main designer, SLP Nana.

This is our twin B, Sanapsis Suomi (Finnish). This one is the one we have most direct patient feedback on and we are oh, so grateful to everybody who has been a part of bringing it to life. At the moment this one is being polished and made better mostly by our fantastic SLP Elina.

Sanapsis Svenska

Our baby! Sanapsis Svenska (Swedish) is our latest localization and we are so exited to see it getting better with each update. First release gave you the basics and new releases will always free, as with all versions. Our Swedish version has been brought to life mostly by our talented SLP Annemari with the help of many speech language pathology students at Åbo Akademi in Turku, Finland.

Our team of SLPs (Nana, Annemari and Elina) showing off their favorites at NAC2019 (June 2019).

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