In an ongoing project (Vinnova, project dnr 2019-04651), we develop an app, called Dialogica, which is intended for use in app-supported philosophical dialogues for persons with aphasia in an IRL setting. Aphasia is a communication disorder caused by a brain injury and involves often grave difficulties with expressing thoughts to others. Many persons with aphasia are excluded from conversations about deeper issues. In a previous research project (Swedish Research Council, project dnr 721-2013-2161), philosophical dialogues were conducted with persons with acquired brain injuries and aphasia, with positive results in group argumentation development. However, the group of persons with more severe brain injuries and aphasia saw smaller changes and needed more facilitator support than did the group of persons with milder brain injuries and without aphasia. This prompted further consideration about appropriate tools, such as apps, to support the participants with aphasia in increasing their autonomy and participation during the dialogues.

Dialogica is developed with modern digital technologies used in computer games and is intended for use on a portable device such as an iPad. It thus contains technologies for text-to-speech and speech-to-text synthesis, real-time translations, avatar animations, visual highlighting, and so on. The design is based on theory and methodology from the fields of philosophy for/with children as well as argumentation analysis and informal logic, along with experience from years of facilitation of philosophical dialogues in different settings. The goal is to produce an app that is easy to use, visually engaging, and tailored for use in philosophical dialogues, in order to provide tools for higher levels of autonomy and participation in inquiry dialogues to participants who otherwise have limited abilities to express themselves. This is done through several features of the app, such as the “conversation tree”, which gives a visualization of the inquiry, and a palette of predefined dialogic moves, to support spoken interaction.

In the project, we use a methodology inspired by an extended interpretation of the “Living Lab” principle, where the actual end-users of an app is involved in the development process through recurrent workshops including feedback sessions. In our case, these workshops rely on a “routine” PwC procedure in combination with using the app during the joint inquiry and meta-dialogue, and giving feedback during and after the sessions, when questions about usability, overall impression and specific features are discussed. Both persons with aphasia and supporting staff in their daily milieu join the workshops. This methodology can be extended also to school environments, where students and teachers are involved.

In this research presentation, we will present our research about app-supported philosophical dialogues (including an overview of the user input received through the Living Lab workshops), shortly show the user interface of the app, and outline some of its main features.