Ithaca College

Ms. Mary Pitti, MS, CCC-SLP, Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at Ithaca College, and Elizabeth Begley, MA, CCC-SLP, College Station Medical Center, College Station, Texas co-authored two apps entitled Small Talk Dysphagia and Small Talk Oral Motor.

SmallTalk Dysphagia is designed for people with dysphagia — an impairment of the ability to swallow. This app provides a set of icons and phrases that allow patients to communicate their swallowing needs to caregivers and health-care providers who are helping them to eat. It contains 50 phrases covering adaptive eating equipment, meal assistance, diet, liquids, medications, and compensatory treatment techniques. It also contains four demonstration videos of treatment techniques commonly used for swallowing. SmallTalk Dysphagia can be set to speak in a male or female voice.

SmallTalk Oral Motor Exercises is designed for people with disorders that affect mouth, tongue, and lip muscles and/or oral coordination. This app consists of 52 videos illustrating cheek, tongue, soft palate, lip, and jaw movements that help strengthen the oral musculature. Because each exercise comes as an individual video, users can focus on the exercises they need and practice as often as they like. This app can be useful to people with degenerative neurological conditions, developmental disorders, or head injuries, as well as aphasia.

The software applications were created in conjunction with Lingraphica.