Ernest, Stuttering App

Ernest, Stuttering App

It is an application like no other in the market!

Designed by Mónica Gaiolas (speech and language therapist and PhD student in Educational Psychology who has worked with stuttering and with several other speech and language pathologies for almost 12 years) in partnership with “Coisas de Ler” and Mateus Victorelli (ToyMobi) mobile developer.

This App Game made especially for school-age children and adolescents who stutter, is also very flexible allowing speech therapists to have tools for working with other speech, language and voice disorders.


Multimedia book

This application has a multimedia book and four games to improve fluency.

The book, written by Mónica Gaiolas and published in Portuguese was translated into English and is entitled: “Ernest, the stuttering boy and his family”. This book tells the story of a boy who stutters and explains how he, his family and friends cope with it. Also it helps the child to understand what stuttering is and gives counseling to parents and the school community about how to improve communication with stuttering children.


Games

1– The first game is called “speaking” and explores:

a) Speech mechanism: It explains the speech mechanism (which parts of your body move when we speak) through the visualization of a body image and a back sound explanation.

b) Sounds Articulation: It intends to work self-awareness of the articulation point of the sounds. The player is invited to choose between two mouths, the right one that is used to make the first sound of a word presented simultaneously by an image and in its written form.

c) Easy Starts and Light Articulatory Contacts: All the images of the articulatory exercise above have taped recorded the respective word made in an easy way and with light articulatory contacts. The player can listen to that tape record and practice this technique and also self- record doing it.

d) Self-regulation: After the production described above, the player is invited to reflect and to classify his production in “good”, “more or less” and “need to try again”.


2– The second game is called “identifying” and explores:

The awareness of the harsh or smooth articulation contacts. The player hears a word and has to decide if that word was made with a harsh or a smooth articulation contact.


3– The third game is called “memorizing” and is a tool to improve practice:

In doing easy and light articulatory contacts. This typical memory game gives the possibility to the player to listen to the words in the memory cards made with the easy and light articulatory contacts and to record himself pronouncing that word.


4– The fourth game is called “drawing” and was conceived to:
Lead the children to cope with their feelings towards stuttering by drawing what stuttering represents to them. The players can also do free drawing. It is also helpful to improve fine motor skills and improve hand-eye coordination.


Team
– Author: Mónica Gaiolas
– Illustrator: Zeca Cintra
– Publisher: Coisas de Ler
– English Translation: Luísa Gaiolas
– Review Brazilian Portuguese: Cristianne Falcão e Simoni França
– Design Graphic: Bruno Cunha e Luís Rodrigues
– Developer: Mateus Victorelli
– Voice: Mónica Gaiolas e Luísa Gaiolas


For more information about “Ernest, Stuttering App”:

– https://www.facebook.com/erneststutteringapp

– monicagaiolas@gmail.com

– editorial@coisasdeler.pt

– toymobi@gmail.com


To buy the book ERNEST, THE STUTTERING BOY AND HIS FAMILY:

– http://www.coisasdeler.pt/index.php?id_product=160&controller=product