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!
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