VAST: Autism and Apraxia - CAS 4+

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is currently funding research into the effectiveness of using VAST with VR goggles and mobile technology.

"Simply effective!"

VAST-Autism provides unprecedented support for spoken language, combining evidence-based best practices and technology to deliver remarkable results.

"Extremely brilliant for all speech motor planning challenges." Kelly, speech-language pathologist

VAST-Autism is a groundbreaking tool that provides state-of-the-art therapy to students with autism and motor speech programming disorders such as apraxia. VAST-Autism combines the highly effective concept of video modeling with written words and auditory cues to help individuals acquire relevant words, phrases, and sentences so that they can speak for themselves. For children and individuals with strong visual skills, this can be a key to developing speech.

"I am a PreK Speech-Language Pathologist and have had tremendous success with students who will not attend to and/or imitate a verbal model." Early intervention speech pathologist

The mirror feature promotes oral motor sequencing and self-monitoring. Using a mirror while practicing speech sounds can provide visual feedback to help individuals improve their muscle coordination and sequencing for speech production. Visual input can be an important source of feedback in developmental apraxia of speech.

“My students showed immediate results. To my surprise, after the FIRST trial, they started to vocalize some sounds.” Harumi, speech-language pathologist

Videos are organized into a hierarchy of 5 categories, beginning with syllables and ending with sentences. Each video gives a spoken target utterance that is preceded by the written word(s). Each word, phrase and sentence is concrete and has meaning that can be generalized and practiced throughout the day. Providing the written word will prevent a student from incorrectly assigning meaning to a picture: such as a frog jumping as "go." The ability to recognize the written target word(s) will increase functional communication and enhance acquisition of spoken language. The progression of VAST-Autism Videos is as follows:

1. Syllable Repetition
2. Single Syllable Words
3. Multi-Syllabic Words
4. Phrases
5. Sentences

This “Core” app represents the first release of the VAST-Autism program. We intend to expand upon this offering through future applications and via the iTherapy platform.

As it becomes available, we will provide more extensive information about the application, research and professional guidance surrounding its use on the web at:

www.vastspeech.com and www.itherapyllc.com

RESEARCH

Early current research into the effectiveness of using VAST in combination with Virtual Reality Goggles to increase attention to relevant motor planning information for speech has shown to be effective. Ongoing research and initial pilot studies indicate that students are highly interested in VAST videos and will almost immediately attempt lip movements or touch their mouths in response to the models. After a few short weeks, many students who were essentially nonverbal, began word approximations and word attempts. Perhaps, the best and most unexpected therapeutic improvements have been in the students’ ability to generalize skills. Individuals may begin attending to the speaker’s oral motor movements during daily communication and continue learning speech in a traditional, naturalistic manner.

Video Modeling -- A significant amount of research has shown video modeling to be rapid and highly effective not only in teaching new behaviors, but also in generalizing and maintaining these behaviors as well.

Visual Language and Literacy -- Children and adults on the spectrum who have difficulty with speaking and writing can learn to read and spell. The ability to read increases functional communication. Information that is not understood auditorily may be easily processed visually. Providing written word(s) to individuals with autism also prevents mislabeling concepts: for example, a car should not be labeled "beep beep," but rather as "CAR," in order to teach words for functional use.