| Description | In recent years, children with communication impairments are increasingly interacting with mobile applications (apps) to work on communication and social skills under the guidance of their speech language pathologists (SLPs). Yet, limited research has been conducted to explore the collaborative use of mobile technology between them. Through interviewing 23 SLPs about their iPad use in the workplace, our study reveals that these SLPs use a variety of applications, including apps as assistive technology and mobile games as reinforcement and motivational tool for therapy. Specifically, app design recommendations reported by SLPs also closely align with prior research on usability, mobility, and playability heuristics for mobile games. This empirical study highlights adoption of commercialized games as a learning and rehabilitation tool in the clinical context, and calls for future research to translate user recommendations as design guidelines to support children with and without disabilities. |
