Speech Therapy Mobile Applications for People with Aphasia: PRISMA review and features analysis

Mobile applications have become substantial and practical for speech therapy services for people with aphasia (PWA) in this advancing technology era. Cultural and linguistic features consideration play a vital role in mobile applications utilization in speech therapy sessions. PWA in the Malaysian population mostly uses the Malay language as their lingua franca. The objective of this study is to 1) review mobile apps available for aphasia and 2) identify instructional features (speech therapy components) and functional features (nonlinguistic components and technology components) of speech therapy mobile applications for the PWA population in Malaysia. Preliminary search and selection process using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta Analyses (PRISMA) has identified 1797 apps with 161 apps eligible to be included for reviewing. This study enables documentation and review of the aphasia speech therapy apps compatible with iOS and Android mobile phones. It shall also identify the features and recommendations for the incorporation of users’ needs and perspective in mobile apps development for PWA, particularly in the Malaysian population. This study will help with the review of the speech therapy apps features and propose the framework for future development of speech therapy apps for PWA in the Malay language.