Using Software Product Lines to Support Language Rehabilitation Therapies: An Experience Report

The rehabilitation of spoken and written language in children with hearing impairment is a process that must be done not only in rehabilitation centers but also at home. This type of rehabilitation must be customized based on the needs of each patient. Besides, it is essential that patients at home do the activities assigned by therapists. However, in order to achieve the desired goals in their work at home, patients must follow the instructions defined by the therapist when they do the activities. For this reason, proposals of software systems that support these activities at home promise to be a solution. This article reports the progress we have done so far developing SATReLO. SATReLO is a software system that supports the rehabilitation process of oral language, and it is composed of a software product line of custom-made video games and two web portals. SATReLO offers customized activities for the therapies and guidance when the video game is played at home. Moving these activities to the software scope generates several advantages including greater accessibility for patients, better monitoring of the development of the activities, and personalized activities according to the specific needs of patients.