In this week's episode, we speak with Jannis Hansa, speech pathologist, epidemiologist and researcher at the University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück in Germany, about the use of virtual reality (VR) to support real-world generalisation in voice therapy. Jannis discusses the challenge of helping clients apply therapy skills in everyday situations, how immersive VR environments can simulate real-life communication demands, the benefits and limitations of VR in clinical practice, and the importance of user-centred design in developing new therapy tools.
Resources:
Hansa & Hansen. (2025). User-centred qualitative evaluation of a fully immersive, head-mounted virtual reality application prototype to facilitate real-life transfer in voice therapy. IJSLP, 28, 303-315. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2025.2473075
SPA members can access the article for free. For non-SPA members the first 50 people who click this link will be able to download the article for free: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YMK7ZFDQBBNIZUYM8RUF/full?target=10.1080/17549507.2025.2473075
Hansa, LeFarth, Hansen. (2026). User experiences with fully immersive virtual reality applications in the context of speech-language pathology. A scoping review. IJLCD, 61(4), https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.70289
Nudelman et al. (2026). Immersive Virtual Reality in the treatment of communication disorders: A scoping review. AJSLP, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_AJSLP-25-0059
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