Virtual clinicians for the treatment of aphasia and speech disorders

Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder that affects the ability to speak and understand spoken language. The purpose of this project is to create a virtual clinician to help individuals with aphasia practice self-initiated speech in everyday communication situations. The project will gauge the interaction and quality of this virtual clinician against those of a real clinician. The first of these tests was carried out using a prototype virtual-clinician avatar with a human driver, data was collected to compared efficiency of the client's speech to speech produced with a real clinician. Results suggest that clients respond appropriately to a virtual clinician.