App Review: Toddlers Cubed

Toddlers Cubed is a great app for very young children, or clients with Autism.  Is fantastic for cause and effect and requesting.  There are six rows of cubes that change colors when touched and play a music note.  When it is not touched for a while it will randomly initiate random cubes.

The clients I see love this app and will request for music when they see my Tablet.  It is very simple and may be a great reward for a children under the age of 3.  I generally let them play with it for 30 seconds and then request a turn and them have them request a turn for themselves, so pragmatics/turn-taking can also be targeted with this app.

Also, with St. Patrick's day around the corner I've been keeping an eye out for related games, so far this rainbow color music app is about as close as I've come.

SLP Android App Review: Bag It! V-Day

I recently came across Bag It! V-Day aka Bag it! Lite.  I am not sure what makes the light version related to valentines day, but it's a great app for working on some basic concepts and problem solving as well as following directions.

The basic idea is to put heavy groceries on the bottom and light ones on the top when bagging them.  Initially I thought my kids wouldn't be interested in it, but they really enjoyed it and didn't notice that they were working on opposites (heavy/light and top/bottom).  This was an effective way to target some opposites and using descriptive language, as well as a lot of problem solving as the game requires you to figure out how to arrange the groceries to keep light ones from being crushed, and my kids usually had to follow at least one-step directions to complete the levels, especially as they became more challenging.  

Give it a try, it worked well at the end of a session allowing the clients to play one or two rounds as there were several replays required for them to pass the levels, even with some coaching.

SLP app Review: Pic Collage

Pic Collage is a great app for speech pathologists looking to make a simple communication board for a client.  This would be appropriate for children or adults as well.  This is a free picture collage app that can be very helpful in making a quick picture board for a non-verbal client.

There are several different options for backgrounds, colors and text.  Additionally, any pictures in the photo gallery can be used on the boards.  This is a tool that families could easily implement as well to support communication quickly, such as when they are out of the house and may want to provide a choice board in a new place that may not be programmed in an AAC device.  

Below is an example of a board that I made for a non-verbal 4 year old child for his favorite items.  The app is quick enough to operate that I made this in a session as a test to see if my client would respond to it and he loved choosing his favorite, music, on the new board.  

Other therapy uses for this app are to make boards for basic concepts, opposites, or matching.  You can easily save it and then have the clients use skitch to edit/draw on them.  There are many great uses for this app in addition to the obvious AAC potential.

This app is certainly not the best AAC option available, but it is free, fast and very user friendly, which is a big plus for many of the families who are a little less tech savvy and has lots of other possible uses for creative speech-language pathologists out there.  

SLP app Review: Miracle Modus

Miracle Modus is a cool little app for non-verbal clients and infants. This is a cause and effect music app that is specifically designed with Autistic children in mind.   It has soothing chimes and bells and most of the modes react to touch.  My kids with Autism are entranced and will even request this app when they are not interested in any other therapy activities.  It can be a great tool in facilitating requests when using an ABA approach as this has been a great motivator for some of my kids who were just beginning to request activities.  It probably won't work with everyone, but for nonverbal kids it is worth a try, especially since it's free!  

Android App for Speech-Pathologists Review: Body Boggle

Body Boggle, an app by a British company Busy things, is a fun app that many of my kids have enjoyed.  It is an app where you can change the attributes of various characters.  It is a great way to target receptive and expressive language in a speech therapy session.  There are two modes, you can change both the face, and the body.  It targets body parts, big/little, long/short, and other opposites.

For a free app it has a lot to offer and the kids are usually captivated for a good 5 to 10 minutes, longer than that and they get a bit bored, but it's fun while it lasts!  A great way to make speech therapy more fun while targeting body awareness and basic concepts.

Android Apps for SLPs Review: Cut The Rope

This is a quick app review for Cut the Rope and some ideas for how this can be used in therapy.  As a speech-language pathologist I am constantly searching for ways to make articulation practice more fun and make giving and following directions more interesting and this app can provide that.  This is a an app for both Android and iPad that is deceptively simple, somewhat like "Where's My Water."  The object is to cut the ropes on a food item and get it to hungry monster.  I mostly use this app for a reward and /r/ practice for older children (7-10) who enjoy the challenge and need practice on /ro/ words, which tend to be so difficult.  This game can also be used to target receptive language by having them follow directions on more difficult levels, or expressive language by asking them to guide you in winning a level that they are familiar with.

This game is fun and great for targeting several deficits, but be sure to set a time limit or number of retries as it can quickly take up more time than intended.

Android App Review: AAC Talking Tabs

Here is another app that is a free AAC program available on the Android market: AAC Talking Tabs,  This is an AAC (Alternative Augmentative Communication) program that allows you to make icons for for words and phrases to give speech options to non-verbal or low-verbal patients.

This is not the best program, but it is useful for some.  Unfortunately, you cannot edit what tabs are shown or the icon for them, but you can add any pictures and change the text to anything you wish.  You can also alter the icon size, but it's a little unreliable for whether or not it will show the picture properly.  I have made a "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" page by adding lots of rows and only putting pictures where two at a time show, so with a little creativity you can find ways to make this useful.  I also changed all the tab colors to black so that my kids don't try to look at them when I want them to focus on the book related page.  If you have  a person who already uses a dynavox or similar device independently and can handle a 1" by 1" inch icon size this would work.

Since it's free I think that it is well worth the time to play around with it and see what you can come up with to make it work for you.  Also, for parents who can't afford an AAC device might find it helpful as well.  Unfortunately another drawback is that I have not found a way to upload pages, but again, if there is nothing else available it has potential to be useful.

Pros: Free, gives a voice to our clients who don't have an AAC device, offers the ability to upload pictures, good for small/simple communication boards
Cons: Not very customizable, diffcult to navigate when programming in edit mode, limited voice choices.

Give it a shot and comment on what you think of it and whether it was useful to you.

Speechie apps for Androids Review: Alexicom AAC for Android

I was inspired by fellow SLP to do some research into some of the Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) apps that are available on Android.  After looking at several of them I found a free app: Alexicom AAC for Android.  This is an interesting app for several reasons.  It comes with 33 pre-loaded boards ranging from an 8 button board for a child to much more complex board (as the one below) for independent for adults or teens.  It also allows you to create custom boards and change the number of columns, rows and the size of pictures on the board which is a big plus.  You can upload your own pictures, or go into the picture files that come with it (by going into the Alexicom picture files on your device rather than using the gallery).  This seems like is has some great potential for a very inexpensive AAC device the speech therapist or parents are able to put in some time for developing the right boards for the client.

Unfortunately, the pages that are linked are only indicated by the tiny blue triangle that you may notice in at the bottom right of some buttons, however, it is still one of the better options that is available at the present time.

Please let me know if you find that this has been useful for any of your clients.  If it works well we could start a resource for pre-made boards as it appears that they can be exported so that other SLPs aren't reinventing the wheel each time.  

Android Apps for Speech Pathologists Review: My PlayHome

Today's review is of a great app that is also available for iPad as well as android platforms.  My PlayHome is a fantastic app that all my kids seem to enjoy.  It is somewhat of an interactive doll house with lots of uses for expressive and receptive language with naming, following directions, describing actions and much more.

The free version is somewhat limited as it has only the living room and kitchen, I decided to spring for the $2.99 full version and it is very well worth the money.  There are five rooms total, two bedrooms (parent and child's), a bathroom, a kitchen, the living room, and the backyard.  Each room has fully interactive items that the kids love to explore (I loved them too!)  In the living room changing CDschanges the music, drop a person on the recliner and they bounce, they can open and close the curtains and turn lights on and off as well as interact with most of the things in the room in some way.  The kitchen became a fast favorite as the cupboards, fridge, and oven all open and anything edible in the app can be eaten by the characters by holding it near their mouth.  The stove turns on, the water in the kettle boils and by putting the kettle/milk/juice in a character's hand and moving the character they can pour drinks then drink them!  You can even put things in the sink and turn on the water.  The bedrooms have dress up opportunities with hats, and the bubbles can be blown.  The characters also go to sleep when put in the beds.  Outside there is a trampoline for them to jump on, flowers and carrots that can be watered and harvested, as well as tree house that they can play in.  

In the kitchen we usually target following and giving directions.  I love this because they are salient actions such as "Get a plate and put a cupcake on it." or "Give the milk to the mom and make her pour it in the cereal."  The kids get a kick out of ordering around an adult and the interactive sounds make this an engaging  activity.  There are so many opportunities for asking and answering questions when the characters play out actions.  This app could also be used for turn taking, social-pragmatics to use as part of a social story to act out the bad behavior and then the desired behavior.  This is one of those apps that once you have it, you can't imagine what you did before it.  

The only drawback is that this app must be used on a large screen size. I find my 10 inch screen is good, but on anything smaller it would be very difficult to manipulate all the small items and they would be hard to see. 

Overall this is a great app that all my kids have enjoyed, generally if they start to loose interest we just go to a different room and they are back on track.  Very few apps out there have as much to offer as this one does for a speech therapy session.  I highly recommend this to any speech-language pathologists looking for a great language app that can be educational and engaging! 

Anroid SLP App Review: Art of Glow

On app that I have found to be a lot of fun and useful is Art of Glow .  This is a paint program that uses glowing shapes to create pulsating and glowing pictures.

There are lots of settings to play around with on this app.  For toddlers I usually change the settings to speed all the way right, and blink all the way left (and uncheck rebirth).  This creates a fireworks effect that they love and will request.  I usually use this to target colors and shapes (especially fun when you select cycle or random)

By changing amount (right), life time (middle), speed (left), blink (left) and rebirth (checked- if you leave it unchecked the drawing will fade and leave you a new blank screen) you can draw pictures that will stay.  I have found that it captures attention of the kids who are distracted so that we can work on colors, shapes and requesting.

Take a look at this fun app, as well as others from the developers, for more glowing apps that kids find very engaging.

Review: Zebra Paint a free Android app with SLP therapy applications

Here is a review of Zebra Paint, a great app that I use frequently in my sessions.  This is a great coloring app that has lots of great uses.  I use it as a reward, as a subject for language enrichment for working on colors, requests, and following directions.

The app, shown below, has a color strip on the left side where you can add almost any desired color using the palette symbol at the bottom. There are 40 different pictures available ranging from space and nature to cars and dinosaurs.  To color you just touch the color and then touch the area to color and it will fill the area.  This makes for a quick coloring activity, especially for the kids that tend to be very slow or meticulous and have difficulty finishing paper coloring within the reward time left in the session.

If I am using this app for language I generally have children request the drawing they want and have them describe the picture as well as the colors that they are planning to use.  For directions, I will tell the kids that I am not very good at coloring and ask them to color the picture for me following directions of 1, 2 or 3 steps to color it.  This can also address part/whole relationships by asking them to color the wheel of the car/truck, the wing of the airplane, etc...  This is another app that can be easily paired with Skitch by saving your picture.  You could easily tackle "What's wrong" by coloring sky and water odd colors, such as making blue trees and red grass, experiment with it and see what you can come up with!

There are lots of ways to use this creative app that is fully functional on many Android platforms.  Even if you don't have a tablet, this one worked quite well on my Android smart phone as well, which was my main platform before I purchased my Galaxy Tab.  

I hope that this gives you some good ideas for how this app could be incorporated into a language therapy session.  It is simple, quick, and easy to use, and best of all... it's  FREE!  If you come up with any other creative uses or if you try it and like it please comment with you're experiences.

Today I would like to discuss a bit about my theory of buying apps.  My requirements are that they are cheap or free (always under $5) and that my clients are engaged by them. I have found many an app that looked like it would fit the bill and it just fell flat.  I simply can not handle paying more than $5 for an app that I may or may not be able to use, therefore I keep to a small enough amount that if the app is no good I'm not going to be too annoyed.  I tend to download lots of free apps and give them a shot with the kids to see what flies.

The apps that I list here are all ones that I have personally downloaded and used with pediatric speech, language, and feeding kids at my work.  The kids have either liked them, or at least tolerated them well and they have been therapeutically useful.  I will let you know which ones are true favorites, and which were just a good short therapy activity based on the short attention spans of the kids I see.

I often talk with friends who have children to find out which apps their kids enjoy and then use those in therapy.  I have found this to be a great way to find new materials as no one knows kids better than other kids!

This blog is full of my opinions about what I have found personally useful, this is certainly not definitive, but meant to give you a good jumping off point to starting your own collection of therapy apps.