Adelaide University is developing the Virtual Interactive platform to Treat Anomic Language (VITAL), a virtual-reality and AI environment where people with aphasia and other speaking and communication difficulties can practise everyday conversations. The platform aims to give people a safe, realistic place to rehearse interactions repeatedly without the pressure of getting something wrong.
How it works
VITAL is being developed as a virtual town square with shops, restaurants, hardware stores, hairdressers and other familiar places where people can practise finding words, asking questions and having conversations. The goal, as described by Professor Maria Kambanaros, is both to improve word-finding and to help people communicate with greater confidence in daily life.
The project grew out of a virtual cafe built by project manager Dr Matthew Berryman to practise his own speaking, which inspired VITAL. Berryman reports that after practising there, ordering a coffee in a real cafe felt more confident and fluent; this is his own account of one everyday interaction, not a measured result.
Research aim and funding
The project is led by Adelaide University and funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas Grant. It aims to make communication therapy more realistic and engaging, while investigating whether VR can improve communication confidence, social participation, wellbeing and quality of life for people with anomia. VITAL is being co-designed with people with aphasia, family members, communication partners, speech pathologists and researchers, and it is still being developed.
What comes next
The research team is exploring how other people, including stroke survivors and speech pathologists, could enter the virtual environment to enable real-time interactions and telehealth sessions. The team hopes VITAL will contribute to new, accessible approaches to communication therapy in Australia.
