The APE program is designed to help children with severe specific speech and language problems.

The Admin program is used by the therapist or teacher to specify the test sequences and to add words and images. The pupil uses the APE Tester program. This page documents the basic functions of the APE Admin program and the full program includes several other functions.

	The APE Admin program is used by the teacher or speech and language therapist to specify the test for the pupil. Forms within this program allow for: the creation of pupils within the system, with their own password and preferred font; the adding of words or phrases and their association with suitable images; the creation of a test sequence, being a list of pairs of words/phrases.
	When a new word or phrase is entered at least one related image must be assigned. This image may be a drawing or a photograph. It can be from any free or suitably licensed source. Images are copied to the APE image cache with a unique filename (so that images from different sources, but with the same name, can be used). If there is more than one image specified for a word/phrase then one of the images is chosen at random. Which image is used in a particular test for a pupil is recorded.
	Word pairs, or phrase pairs, are chosen by the teacher or speech and language therapist and are grouped to form a test sequence. A typical sequence will have at least one 'wrong' word/phrase for each 'correct' word/phrase. Although a specific order can be given to the pairs in a test, it is common to use them in a random order so that the pupil does not learn sequences. A test sequence can be used for more than one pupil, but it will often be specific to one pupil. A test sequence, once created, can be copied and amended for another pupil, or that copy can be updated for the original pupil as they gain proficiency. However, once a particular test has been used by any pupil it becomes locked and a copy of it has to be made if an changed version is then required.
	Throughout the Admin program, standardised Finder screens are available to locate pupils, words and tests etc.
	The Pupils/Tests screen is used to specify a particular test for a pupil. Only one test is actually enabled for a pupil at any one time, but many tests can be allocated to that pupil. Thus a particular previous test can be returned to, or a series of tests predefined and then enabled as needed.

Many types of reports are possible because a large amount of test data is saved into the database, however the following examples show only simple reports. The whole data is available for full evaluation by any tool that can access a Microsoft SQL Server database.

This short report example shows a typical result for single words. The pupil has great difficulty distinguishing between bell and ball, but is fairly happy with the word cap where it is the correct word. For this pupil the time taken is very indicative of their problem area and must be taken in combination with a correct choice.

Word / Phrase	Wrong Word / Phrase	* Tests Count	Correct	Wrong	Mean Secs
ball	bell	2	1	1	25
bell	ball	3	2	1	25
bride	bridge	3	2	1	26
bridge	bride	4	3	1	11
camp	cap	3	3	0	10
cap	camp	3	3	0	3
cap	cup	4	3	0	3
cup	cap	6	5	0	14
fight	fruit	3	3	0	17

* The 'Test Count', and hence Correct and Wrong, vary in these reports because this report has been built from several test sequences of which not all have gone to completion by the pupil. This is very typical of specific tests because of other influences, such as tiredness of the pupil or interruptions.

An example of the difficulty in understanding the pupil's problems can also be seen in the following partial results from pairs of phrases. (The actual tests involve many more combinations.)

Word / Phrase	Wrong Word / Phrase	* Tests Count	Correct	Wrong	Mean Secs
The dalek is behind the monkeys.	The dalek is beside one monkey.	3	3	0	10
The dalek is behind the monkeys.	The dalek is beside the monkeys.	5	5	0	30
The dalek is beside one monkey.	The dalek is beside the two monkeys.	4	4	0	16
The dalek is beside the two monkeys.	The dalek is beside one monkey.	4	4	0	17
The dalek is between the monkeys.	The dalek is behind the monkeys.	3	3	0	11
The dalek is between the monkeys.	The owl is between the monkeys.	4	3	1	5
The monkey is drinking.	The monkey is eating.	4	4	0	9
The monkey is eating.	The monkey is drinking.	4	4	0	6
There are two monkeys in front of the dalek.	There are two monkeys in the cardboard box.	3	3	0	22
There are two monkeys in the blue box.	There are two monkeys in the red box.	4	4	0	4
There are two monkeys in the cardboard box.	There are two monkeys in the blue box.	4	3	1	13
There are five ducks on the grass.	There are three ducks on the grass.	5	5	0	9
There are five ducks on the grass.	There are five ducks on the pond.	3	3	0	5

Interpretation of results can sometimes be obvious to 'lay' persons, but should really be part of a proper speech and language assessment. The APE program can, of course, also be effective by being used to reinforce classroom and Speech and Language Therapy [SaLT / SLT / S&LT] work where the recorded results are ignored for a particular pupil, as long as they go through their defined APE test sequences.