Aphasia Games for Health

Aphasia Games for Health is a collaboration between professional game designers, academic speech pathologists, and the aphasia community to develop games that best serve the needs of those living with aphasia. 

Aphasia is a language disorder caused by stroke and other acquired brain injuries characterized by language deficits. It can affect speaking, comprehension, reading, and writing, and has lasting negative effects on quality of life. Aphasia often leads to extreme social isolation. 

The goal of these games is to help restore language, adapt to aphasia, and fight social isolation. They also serve as a resource for developers looking to make their games aphasia-friendly and to adapt existing games to be more accessible for people with aphasia.

The effort involved collaboration between the Aphasia Recovery Connection, the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Jessica Hammer (director of the Center for Transformational Play) at Carnegie Mellon University, and Thorny Games.

The results are prototypes for three games that have been released to the community for noncommercial use and playtesting.

Project Team
Will Evans, Carol Dahl Richards, David Dow, Kathryn Hymes, Hakan Seyalioglu, Jessica Hammer

Awards
Pitt Innovation Challenge (PInCH) Award Winner

Game Prototypes
The Minister’s Cat
Audition
Do You See What I See
The Metagame

Paper
Designing Game-Based Rehabilitation Experiences for People with Aphasia

Website
AphasiaGamesForHealth.com