MobaCare: Development of Mobile Application as an Assistive Tool for Speech Therapy

Mobile applications for speech therapy are becoming dominant in clinical practice or therapy sessions. For children diagnosed with speech delay, the mobile application provides a chance to increase the practice outside the classroom settings. However, the amount and prompt explosion available for mobile applications poses challenges for speech therapists and clients on how to find this mobile application and, more importantly, to determine which one is the best to use. Therefore, to recognize where the improvement of the assistive mobile application is required, an evaluation needs to be led. The study's main purpose was to find answers to a series of formulated problems to fill a gap in designing and developing an assistive mobile application that was used in the development of preschool. Moreover, the scope of this study was primarily aimed at designing the element for an assistive mobile application. For the researchers to complete it, the researchers applied the ADDIE model in the development process. The data gathered according to the speech therapists were collected with the use of interviews and observation and later analyzed by the researchers utilizing the content analysis coding scheme. As a result, the assistive mobile application elements such as responsive, communicative, comprehensive, and language expressive were included in the design of MobaCare which revealed suitable to the needs of the speech therapists. Wherein, the assistive mobile application presents the potential to allow a more interesting result in treating children with speech delays. Furthermore, MobaCare performed as an assistive tool accomplished as a channel provided help to the speech therapist to transfer various knowledge in delivering the content for the children to have intuitive learning activities for communication development.