New TWIST to Speech Therapy: Innovative Technology Brings Hope for Survivors of Strokes and Head Injuries and People with Language-Based Learning Disabilities

Stroke and traumatic brain injury survivors, as well as victims of degenerative neurological conditions and students with language-based learning disorders can now immerse themselves in a new TWIST to speech therapy. Noted Maryland speech-language pathologist, Joan Green, M.A. CCC-SLP, has developed an exciting practical approach for helping people using technological breakthroughs. Innovative Speech Therapy (IST) , an expanded, high-tech, outpatient speech therapy center in Potomac, Maryland, founded by Green, announces a new program called Technology with Innovative Speech Therapy (TWIST).
Green, a 20-year veteran speech therapist, says, "TWIST provides hope and empowers people to jumpstart rehabilitation and education efforts while saving time and money in the process even after discharge from other speech therapy programs.” The TWIST program is among the first speech-language therapy programs to integrate computers and technology into an intensive rehabilitation program. TWIST features eighteen hours of intensive individualized speech therapy that specifically defines a patient’s communication and cognitive strengths and weaknesses. It then matches those strengths and weaknesses with advanced computer software, adaptive hardware, and other helpful devices and resources, along with more traditional techniques.

Along with a renewed feeling of hope, participants return home at the end of the program with a comprehensive home practice program, software, and additional tools and resources that were found to be of greatest value.

Through Green’s vision of helping people improve their overall quality of life by compensating for deficits and strengthening areas of weakness, participants are able to enhance their involvement in many aspects of daily life. Patients with untapped potential no longer have to be dismissed without hope of further improvement due to lack of funding; changing reimbursement policies of Medicare, HMOs, and private insurance companies; and large caseloads in the schools. Goals of the program include maximizing participants’ abilities to communicate with friends and family, talk on the phone, read the paper, send e-mail messages, organize their home and work environments, succeed in school and at work, and participate in recreational and social activities.

The vast majority of people with communication and cognitive limitations can benefit from the newest advances in technology. Voice recognition software can help people who are unable to write by typing what they say. Computerized text readers can help people who have difficulty reading by reading text out loud. Talking dictionaries and word prediction software can help people find the words they want to use. Specialized software with customizable exercises can enable people to practice for hours each day to improve the speed and extent of their progress. Adapted e-mail programs and web browsers provide access to the Internet and its many powerful benefits. Mainstream programs such as Microsoft Windows and Word can be customized for improved accessibility. “Consumers deserve to be exposed to this information, but they need a qualified, computer-savvy communication specialist to figure out what is best to use and how to use it. Everyone has different needs and challenges and will benefit from different resources. My profession has been challenged to rethink the way speech therapy is provided,” says Green. “Appropriate technology use empowers individuals to become strong self-advocates and to become more independent.



In a March 30, 2006, report to Congress, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 5.3 million U.S. citizens (2 percent of the population) are living with a disability as a result of a traumatic brain injury. It is further estimated that approximately 1 million Americans currently have aphasia (a communication disorder that results from damage to language centers of the brain), and that number grows by 80,000 each year.


For more information on Innovative Speech Therapy or the TWIST program please visit www.innovativespeech.com.