Ashley Small

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Check out these amazing speech therapy apps

 

Articulation apps

 

Articulate it! is a unique multi-player application created specifically to help children improve their speech sound production. Designed by a certified speech-language pathologist, Articulate it! contains over 2000 images selected for working on English consonant sounds at the word, phrase, sentence and story level. It includes 72 stunning scenes targeting story level. Perfect for all levels of articulation/phonology therapy; potential targets include consonants, digraphs, and consonant clusters.

 

Articulation Scenes comes with 72 stunning built-in scenes and over 1200 practice words which provide numerous opportunities for children to pronounce their sounds more clearly. All activities were beautifully designed around the theme of cinema and movies for a fun and interesting learning activity.

 

Wacky Selfie Articulation is a comprehensive collection of over 450 hilarious sound-specific stickers that can be placed on top of a selfie photo to turn a regular selfie into a wacky one. Designed for speech-language pathologists, this photo-based app was made to be used with youngsters who exhibit difficulty producing the following speech sounds: S, Z, R, L, S/R/L Blends, SH, CH, and TH.

 

Charades Articulation is an easy-to-play and fast-paced speech therapy game helps players to have fun while describing, acting out, and guessing random words. Charades Articulation elaborates on the classic party game of charades by including a comprehensive collection of over 1,000 sound-specific articulation words that can be chosen from to appear during a round of play. These words are designed for speech-language pathologists to use with individuals who exhibit difficulty producing the following speech sounds: S, Z, R, L, S/R/L Blends, SH, CH, and TH.

 

Word Search Articulation is jam-packed with over 1,000 sound-specific articulation words that can be hunted for. These puzzles contain hidden words designed for speech-language pathologists to use with individuals who exhibit difficulty producing the following speech sounds: S, Z, R, L, S/R/L Blends, SH, CH, and TH.

 

Listen Close Articulation is a unique speech therapy game that challenges players to memorize and repeat an ever-increasing string of articulation word sequences. It features a comprehensive collection of over 600 sound-specific articulation words designed for speech-language pathologists to use with individuals who exhibit difficulty producing the following speech sounds: S, Z, R, L, S/R/L Blends, SH, CH, and TH.

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SLP Minimal Pairs Full uses pairs of 367 words to help clients identify and correct phonological sounds. Developed by speech-language pathologists, this app can help identify phonological disorders in children age pre-Kindergarten through sixth grade.

 

What’s the Pic Articulation comes with 1800+ High Definition images and words for 25 sounds in initial, medial, and final positions, including L, R, S blends, and Vocalic R. The object of the game is to get lots of productions by rewarding EVERY speech sound practice while the player is a detective trying to guess the hidden picture first.

 

Multiple Choice Articulation is an interactive app that features a collection of over 500 hilarious multiple choice questions designed for speech-language pathologists to use with individuals who exhibit difficulty producing the following speech sounds: S, Z, R, L, S/R/L Blends, SH, CH, and TH.

 

I Dare You Articulation is an interactive app that features a collection of 600 child-friendly dares designed for speech-language pathologists to use with individuals who exhibit difficulty producing the following speech sounds: S, Z, R, L, S/R/L Blends, SH, CH, and TH.

 

R-intensive is the most engaging, and comprehensive go-to application for children who need a tool for practicing the production of the phoneme /r/ at the word, phrase, and sentence level.

 

Webber Photo Artic Castle is  a fantastic app that contains eight different games (flashcards, matching, and arcade) to work on phonemes in all positions of words. While not specific to articulation or speech, TinyTap is an app that is filled with games created by educators and therapists. You can even create your own games specific to your child’s needs! We were able to find a bunch of fantastic articulation games on this app.

 

Speech With Milo Apps are a series of nine speech apps to build language skills working on sequencing, vocabulary, and basic subject + verb + object sentences.)

 

ArtikPix utilizes speech sound delays through 21 decks for the following sounds: th, f, v, ch, sh, k, g, s, z, l, r, s-blends, r-blends, l-blends, p, b, m, n, t, d, j. The decks are combined, selected for sound group, then practiced in full-featured flashcard and matching activities. The features include recorded audio, voice recording, and scoring and data collection.

 

Blue Whale- NACD is an app for children struggling with Apraxia and articulation (CVC productions only). Imitate consonant-vowel-consonant (“CVC”) productions. 8 levels of complexity included.

 

Talking Larry the Bird features a bird named Larry who will repeat back everything he hears in a silly voice.  This is great for giving children a motivating reason to practice their speech and language skills.  There are also cause and effect features of this app that provide constant amusement for kids and adults alike.  For example, if you bop Larry on the head, he flips over his branch. If you push the lightning bolt button, Larry will get struck by lightning and disappear.  You can also feed Larry, give him a round of applause, or play notes on a piano that you want him to sing.

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Talking Pierre the Parrot is a virtual pet who repeats everything your child says in a funny voice. Although this isn’t a dedicated speech therapy app, it’s a great way to motivate your child to articulate correctly so Pierre sounds good! This app is lots of fun for kids because it is less structured. Consider using this app as positive reinforcement after more intense sessions.

Speech Tutor is an app where you can watch a virtual mouth as it produces selected sounds. This application also provides tips for producing the sound and age for when we expect mastery of each sound.

 

Articulation Station is a comprehensive tool for children with speech sound delays. It offers exercises to practice 22 sounds at both the word and sentence levels, as well as the longer story level. It includes six activities: flashcards, matching, rotating sentences, unique sentences, level 1 stories, level 2 stories. With colorful photos and a suite of tools including voice recording for auditory feedback, scoring, and data tracking, it’s easy to use by speech-language pathologists and parents alike. This speech therapy app contains sets of pictures based around the sounds we target in speech therapy.  For example, if your child is working on learning the /p/ sound, it contains words with /p/ at the beginning, middle, and ends of words. It also allows you to view those words individually (as flashcards) or make a game out of them by playing memory. You can have your child say each word as he/she turns the cards over for practice. Then, once your child is pretty good at single words, you can put those words in sentences. This makes the practice a little more difficult and takes your child’s production to the next level. Then, once he/she has mastered that, it even puts the words in simple stories for you.  Other features I enjoy are that you can record the child’s production and play it back to him/her for immediate feedback, and that you can record if the child produced it correctly or incorrectly and receive a percentage correct at the end. This will allow you to chart your child’s progress.

 

Receptive Language

 

Question Builder is designed to help elementary aged children learn to answer abstract questions and create responses based on inference. Extensive use of audio clips promotes improved auditory processing for special needs children with autism spectrum disorders or sensory processing disorders.

 

Injini targets shapes and colors, cause and effect, receptive identification of objects (such as “find the ball”), pre-writing skills, phonemic awareness, matching, patterns, puzzles, and memory.  This app is a suite of games which focus on child development in many areas. There are 12 games included in this app and each game is broken down into many different difficulty levels. For example, one game works on completing puzzles.  Within that game, you can choose level one, which consists of placing one shaped piece into its corresponding hole, all the way up through level 9 with each level getting progressively harder. This game was designed for children with special needs so it is specifically designed to give them many successes while working on progressively harder skills.  This app was designed for children ages 1-7.

 

Language Empires is designed for elementary age students and targets 8 goals: Answering how, why, and which questions, inferencing, vocabulary, predicting, figurative language, and sequencing.

 

WH Question Cards is a virtual version of their “wh-” question cards that they sell on their website.  Each set of cards includes many questions using the target “wh-” word. Also included are four different games you can play while your child is practicing the wh- questions including matching and the super duper secret decoder game which allows the child to slide the decoder over the choices to find the correct response.

 

Augmentative Alternative Communication

 

Proloquo2Go provides a master solution to assist anyone who may have difficulty speaking. This communication system redefines AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication).

 

Sono Flex serves the purpose of a communication device for children who are having difficulty communicating with the people around them.  This is a cost-effective alternative to dedicated communication devices which can cost several thousand dollars. Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) devices are a great option for children with autism, down syndrome, apraxia of speech, or other communication disorders that cause them to not be able to communicate verbally.  With this app, children can push a button or combination of buttons and it will speak their message for them.

 

Verbally is is an easy-to-use, comprehensive augmentative and alternative Communication (AAC) app for the iPad. Verbally brings speech to those without and enables real conversation with its simple, intuitive design.  Just tap in what you want to say and Verbally speaks for you.

 

Stuttering

 

Fluency SIS is intended for school-age children who stutter, SIS (Smart Intervention Strategy) reshapes the approach to stuttering modification. Its goal is to help the child become an effective and confident communicator by desensitizing him or her to feared stimuli, thereby reducing anxiety. Using creativity and humor, it teaches the child how to maintain a positive perception of him or herself.

 

Fluency Tracker one of the best speech therapy apps for the parents of children who stutter and aims to increase children’s positive feelings about speech, as well as reduce avoidance behavior. Users can enter data regarding how often the child stutters throughout the day, when and where this occurs, and with whom the child was speaking. They can also record when and why the child avoided speaking. This data is processed to provide an ongoing overview of a child’s anxiety and attitudes toward speaking so that the speech therapist can better customize his or her therapy.

 

For children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

 

Keyword Understanding is aimed at enhancing comprehension in children with autism and special needs, this is one of the best apps for speech therapy with exercises to practice auditory and written instructions. With an easy to use interface, colorful photos, and 3D objects, users can create thousands of “tasks” for the patient to perform. For example, you can create the task, “Touch the flower,” and follow it up with, “Touch the vase.” Eventually, when the child has mastered simple task comprehension, you can create the more complex task, “Touch the flower and then touch the vase.”

 

Let’s Be Social  provides exercises to practice pragmatic language or social skills. There are 40 lessons that are divided into five skill sets: personal interactions, navigating the community, school behavior, handling change, and social relationships.  Lessons depict “normal” interactions and teach the patient what the expected emotions and behaviors are in that interaction. This is shown through a video with thought bubbles to reinforce learning.

 

The Social Express is an engaging, interactive software application designed for children with autism, Asperger’s, and ADHD, nonverbal learning disabilities, pragmatic language deficits or other social learning challenges.

 

Social Quest improves pragmatic language comprehension and expression in a variety of social situations for older elementary, middle school, and high school-aged populations.

 

Speech Blubs makes speech fun and interactive. Think Snapchat filters mixed with an articulation app. Kids love it!

Full Social Skills Builder  is for ages 5-12. It targets understanding emotions. Videos are organized according to age group (school age, adolescent). Watch videos in different environments (school, community). Child answers 3-5 multiple choice questions following video. Perspective taking, Identifying appropriate responses (making comments, asking for information)

 

ConversationBuilderTeen is a conversation simulator designed to help teenaged children learn how to have multi-exchange conversations with their peers, in a variety of social settings. The auditory pattern of conversation is presented in a visual format to help students recognize and master the flow of conversation. ConversationBuilder is designed to help elementary aged children.

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ways to improve narrative/story telling

 

Story Builder for iPad targets picture description, word order, sentence formation, vocabulary, making predictions, cause/effect, pronouns, verb tense, and sequencing. It is designed to help children improve in paragraph formation, integration of ideas, and making higher level abstractions by inference.

 

iSequence is an educational app for children with Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome that enables them to practice 100 different sequences of everyday situations, such as: Autonomous habits like brushing their teeth, washing their hands, getting dressed or going to bed. Fun activities like going to the beach, to the movies or do sports. Everyday situations like falling down, taking the bus, going the doctor, buying bread or getting wet in the rain. Emotions like happiness, sadness, surprise or fear. Talking along with the lead character in the app provide opportunities to practice speech.

 

Pictello is a simple way to create talking photo albums and talking books. Each page in a Pictello Story can contain a picture, up to five lines of text, and a recorded sound or text-to-speech using high-quality voices.  Target: social stories, story retell, etc.

 

Expressive Language

 

Language Builder targets picture description, sentence formation, word order, verb tense, vocabulary, pronouns. It is designed to help children improve sentence ideation, sentence formation, and receptive and expressive language.

 

Preposition Builder targets picture description and sentences formation using appropriate prepositions. It is designed to help elementary aged children learn to use prepositions and learn how prepositions can change the meaning of a sentence.

 

TenseBuilder is designed to help students learn how to identify and use correct tense forms by playing movie quality animated videos to demonstrate past, present and future tense. 48 video lessons (will expand to 54) are in place to help give students a deeper understanding about the purpose of tense. Special attention is paid to the past tense of irregular verbs.

 

Sentence Builder is designed to help elementary aged children learn how to build grammatically correct sentences. Attention is paid to the connector words that make up over 80% of the English language. Sentence Builder offers a rich and fun environment for improving the grammar of all children.social settings. SentenceBuilderTeen is designed to help teenage children learn how to build grammatically correct sentences.

 

Rainbow Sentences is designed to help students improve their ability to construct grammatically correct sentences, the who, what, where, and why parts of sentences are color coded to help students recognize and understand how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure.

 

Syntax City targets a variety of grammatical elements for elementary and middle school children. The English rules of plurals, irregular verbs and verb agreement are addressed.

 

iName it was designed to assist individuals with word finding difficulty secondary to aphasia. Additionally, it can benefit individuals with apraxia that are assisted by visual and sentence completion cues.

 

Splingo’s Language Universe is a fun alien hosted app that helps develop listening and language skills. It is an entertaining, motivating game, where the focus is on a variety of different aspects of language, including naming words (nouns), action words (verbs), location words (prepositions), description words (adjectives), e.g. color, size.

 

Speak it! Text to Speech, allows you to copy and paste text or type your own text into the app and then reads the text aloud. This is great for students working on grammatical structures and sentence formation.

 

Dragon Dictation, is speech to text application.  To use it, students speak into the microphone and their speech is converted to text.  The accuracy is impressive, even with difficult words or background noise.

 

iCommunicate lets you design visual schedules, storyboards, communication boards, routines, flash cards, choice boards, speech cards, and more. 

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Describe It (SLP) developed to increase children’s semantic language skills. It works to provide children a framework of reference to describe words/objects.

 

Toontastic: All Access is a wonderful creative learning tool that empowers kids to draw, animate, and share their own cartoons through imaginative play. Perfect for encouraging all kinds of speech and language skills. 

 

My PlayHome again not specifically for speech and language, but every SLP has it on their list. It is the original and best doll house app. Massively interactive, your kids can explore and use everything in the house. The characters eat, sleep, shower, brush their teeth, open the closets, watch TV and take showers.

 

Literacy

 

Phonics Studio, makes learning how to pronounce words fun and easy. Mastering pronunciation, your students will also greatly expand their existing vocabulary since the app comes fully loaded with over 2,500 gorgeous flash cards.

 

Profile of Phonological Awareness was developed for the purpose of evaluating and describing the phonological awareness skills of children.

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Motivational games

 

Whiteboard is a portable whiteboard that didn't leave a mess and didn't need markers or an eraser. This app is a dream come true. It has multiple options for drawing different colors, adding multiple layers, using text, as well as collaboration with other users who also have the app. It's a great alternative to a physical whiteboard with unlimited uses.

 

Dice determines how many times a student needs to say a sound during therapy, how many turns someone in the group takes, or how many homework items they have to find at home that have the /r/ sound in them.

 

Google Earth is an app you can use it for following directions, teaching prepositions, strengthening memory abilities, all while navigating through any city in the world. And all this while sitting at the table.

 

Make Dice Lite is one step up from the "Dice" app because it let's you create your own custom dice for whatever you working on, sounds, vocab, verbs, nouns, adjectives, whatever. Make as many custom dice as you want and it saves them right in the app.

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The Ultimate Buzzer helps reinforce children by hearing  the ding when they did it right.