The Science
EnableBridge calls itself evidence-informed — this page shows the work. Below is what each game trains, in plain language, and the established clinical task or paradigm it's modeled on. It's meant to be readable by a parent and credible to an SLP or OT deciding whether to recommend it.
Word Games
Vocabulary and auditory memory.
Word Forge
Hearing a word and matching it to its meaning — building auditory word recognition and vocabulary.
Draws on word–picture matching, a task widely used in aphasia and language therapy to rebuild word retrieval and comprehension.
- Kay, J., Lesser, R., & Coltheart, M. (1992). Psycholinguistic Assessments of Language Processing in Aphasia (PALPA). Psychology Press.
- Durfee, A. Z., & Harnish, S. M. (2022). Using word-picture verification to inform language impairment locus in chronic post-stroke aphasia. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences, 3, 1012588.
Word Recall
Learning new words and holding onto them over repeated sessions, not just in the moment.
Draws on spaced retrieval practice — reviewing information at increasing intervals — a technique used in memory rehabilitation and aphasia therapy to strengthen long-term retention. Spaced retrieval is one of the most-studied memory-support techniques for older adults with dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
- Camp, C. J., Foss, J. W., O’Hanlon, A. M., & Stevens, A. B. (1996). Memory interventions for persons with dementia. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 193–210.
Spatial Memory
Visual patterns and locations.
Grid Ghost
Watching a sequence of locations light up, then reproducing it from memory — visual and sequential working memory.
Draws on visuospatial span tasks (in the tradition of the Corsi block-tapping test), a standard tool for assessing and training visuospatial working memory in cognitive rehabilitation. The Corsi block task is a standard tool in geriatric neuropsychology for assessing visuospatial working memory in aging, stroke, and dementia.
- Kessels, R. P. C., van Zandvoort, M. J. E., Postma, A., Kappelle, L. J., & de Haan, E. H. F. (2000). The Corsi Block-Tapping Task: Standardization and normative data. Applied Neuropsychology, 7(4), 252–258.
Memory Match
Finding hidden pairs by remembering which card was where — visuospatial paired-associate learning, not just holding a sequence in mind.
Draws on visuospatial paired-associate learning tasks, in the tradition of the CANTAB Paired Associates Learning (PAL) test — a computerized card-matching paradigm used in cognitive assessment and rehabilitation across aging, dementia, and general neuropsychological screening.
- Sahakian, B. J., & Owen, A. M. (1992). Computerized assessment in neuropsychiatry using CANTAB: Discussion paper. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 85(7), 399–402.
Path Finder
Tapping numbered targets in order, then alternating numbers and letters (1, A, 2, B, 3, C…) — cognitive set-shifting and processing speed.
Draws directly on the Trail Making Test (TMT Parts A and B), one of the most widely used executive-function screens in dementia, MCI, stroke, and traumatic-brain-injury assessment. A wrong tap here never restarts the trial — the same way a real TMT administrator corrects an error in place and lets the patient continue, clock still running.
Trackline
Quick, accurate gaze-shifts to a target that appears somewhere new (saccades), then steadily tracking a smoothly moving target with a dragged reticle (smooth pursuit) — the specific oculomotor skills that convergence insufficiency and weak saccadic control impair.
Draws on saccadic and smooth-pursuit training, established categories within vision therapy for eye-movement disorders. Some children diagnosed with ADHD are later found to have convergence insufficiency instead — a vision problem whose symptoms (losing focus, eye fatigue) overlap with attention-disorder symptoms — though whether one causes the other isn't settled; this game trains the underlying skill either way. The drag-a-reticle mechanic is this app's own manual adaptation of the classic pursuit-rotor apparatus, tracked here honestly as an inspiration, not a direct measure of eye movement.
- Scheiman, M., & Wick, B. (2019). Clinical Management of Binocular Vision: Heterophoric, Accommodative, and Eye Movement Disorders (5th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
- Granet, D. B., Gomi, C. F., Ventura, R., & Miller-Scholte, A. (2005). The relationship between convergence insufficiency and ADHD. Strabismus, 13(4), 163–168.
- Inspiration, not a clinical sourceThe drag-a-reticle pursuit mechanic is this app’s own adaptation of the classic pursuit-rotor apparatus for a touchscreen, not a direct measure of eye movement or a published protocol for this exact exercise. The citation below is the pursuit-rotor’s original description, supporting evidence for the underlying visuomotor-tracking construct, not a direct source for this specific game.
- Koerth, W. A. (1922). A pursuit apparatus: Eye-hand co-ordination. Psychological Monographs, 31, 288–292.
Sudoku
Filling a grid so every row, column, and box has one of each symbol, with no repeats — logical deduction, planning, and sustained attention. Pick numbers, letters, or symbols to fill with, whichever is easier for you.
Draws on constraint-satisfaction/logic-puzzle engagement, studied specifically as "number puzzles" in a large cohort of adults 50 and over (the PROTECT study) — more frequent number-puzzle use was associated with better performance across attention, reasoning, and memory measures. An intentionally broader-appeal, less disease-specific entry than most of the portfolio, same as Memory Match — general cognitive-training value, not a targeted clinical substitute.
Hemisphere
Left–right brain coordination.
Crosswire
Reacting to a stimulus shown to one side and responding with the opposite hand — practicing communication between brain hemispheres.
Draws on the classic split-brain crossed-response paradigm — a stimulus shown to one visual field, identified using the hand on the other side — and its later extension to agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) as a "natural" split-brain model.
- Gazzaniga, M. S., & Sperry, R. W. (1967). Language after section of the cerebral commissures. Brain, 90(1), 131–148.
- Milner, A. D., Jeeves, M. A., Silver, P. H., Lines, C. R., & Wilson, J. (1985). Reaction times to lateralized visual stimuli in callosal agenesis: Stimulus and response factors. Neuropsychologia, 23(3), 323–331.
- Brown, W. S., Jeeves, M. A., Dietrich, R., & Burnison, D. S. (1999). Bilateral field advantage and evoked potential interhemispheric transmission in commissurotomy and callosal agenesis. Neuropsychologia, 37(10), 1165–1180.
Split Brain
Recognizing whether something is language/literal or tone/emotional content, then answering on the opposite side from the one that content would naturally suggest — practicing deliberate, controlled cross-hemisphere response routing.
Draws on two separate, well-established lines of research: (1) stimulus-response compatibility / the "Simon effect" — responding is slower and more error-prone when a stimulus's location or nature conflicts with the response side it requires, and training on incongruent mappings is a recognized way to practice cognitive control over an automatic response tendency; (2) hemispheric specialization for language versus prosody — the left hemisphere is specialized for rapid segmental/linguistic processing while the right hemisphere is specialized for the emotional and tonal (prosodic) qualities of communication.
- Simon, J. R., & Rudell, A. P. (1967). Auditory S-R compatibility: The effect of an irrelevant cue on information processing. Journal of Applied Psychology, 51(3), 300–304.
- Ross, E. D. (1981). The aprosodias: Functional-anatomic organization of the affective components of language in the right hemisphere. Archives of Neurology, 38(9), 561–569.
Hemiscape
Tracking a moving pattern with your eyes and noticing where a brief flash appears across your visual field.
Draws on optokinetic tracking and visual-field awareness exercises used in vision therapy, aimed at general left/right hemisphere visual coordination.
- Inspiration, not a clinical sourceThe HemiStim/OPK exercise pairing itself was adapted from the founder’s own neurological rehabilitation exercises, not from a published, peer-reviewed protocol — it is not specific to any one condition. The citation below is supporting evidence for the underlying visual-training mechanism, not a direct source for this specific game.
- Pollock, A., Hazelton, C., Rowe, F. J., et al. (2019). Interventions for visual field defects in people with stroke. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Speech
Articulation and speech-sound practice.
Say & See
Practicing specific consonant sounds inside real words, with a picture cue and a spoken model to imitate — building clear articulation of individual speech sounds.
Draws on articulation therapy, the standard speech-language pathology approach of practicing a target sound within picture-supported words at increasing phonetic complexity.
- Bernthal, J. E., Bankson, N. W., & Flipsen, P. (2022). Articulation and Phonological Disorders: Speech Sound Disorders in Children (8th ed.). Pearson.
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Practice Portal: Speech Sound Disorders — Articulation and Phonology.
Emotions
Emotion recognition and social skills.
Read the Room
Identifying what a facial expression or body language is communicating.
Draws on emotion-recognition training used in autism and social-communication intervention, and in cognitive rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury (TBI) where reading social cues is affected.
- Golan, O., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2006). Systemizing empathy: Teaching adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism to recognize complex emotions using interactive multimedia. Development and Psychopathology, 18(2), 591–617.
Memory
Auditory working memory and recall.
Echo
Hearing a sequence and holding it in memory long enough to repeat it back, in order.
Draws on auditory span tasks (in the tradition of digit-span testing), a standard measure and training target in working-memory rehabilitation. Digit span is a core subtest in standard cognitive assessment across the lifespan, widely used in aging and dementia evaluation.
- Wechsler, D. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV), Digit Span subtest. Pearson.