Review: Flow Free and Follow Me Free

Today's review is of two apps that I have really enjoyed for following directions, memory and attention.  Flow Free and Follow Me Free are two very similar apps that are fun and great for working on several different areas.

Flow Free is a maze-like app that I love for working on problem solving and following directions.  There are pairs of dots in various colors that you have to connect while taking up a whole grid and they cannot cross each other.  Most of my kids can't do this on their own, but we work on counting the number of spaces and following locational directions.  Usually good for a good 5 to 10 minutes of direction-following-fun!

Follow Me Free is very similar but works on memory as well as following directions.  Very similar to Flow Free, dots appear on the screen and move to their end point, then the player has to retrace the dot's path.  You have to really pay attention and remember the path that the dots take.  Usually I have my kids follow one dot, and I will do the other to take some of the pressure off.  You can rewatch the moves as many times as necessary, and this is a good way to track improvements in memory and attention by looking at how many times they need to watch before they are able to replicate it.  I will often also use this for following directions by remembering the path and verbally guiding them.

Both are very simple games that provide a lot of complex skills.  I have also given these to parents as home practice and they have gone over well, especially as they are free.  Just another great couple of apps to add to your repertoire!

App Review of Cooking apps for following directions

Here is another trio review, this time for some decorating apps that were found on the Bubadu.com page of Google Play.  The three apps that I really like from them are their cooking/decorating apps.  There is Ice Cream Kids Cooking Game, Cupcake Kids Cooking Game, Pizza Maker Cooking Game, and Cake Maker Kids Cooking Game.

This first picture is from my favorite, Ice Cream Kids.  There are lots of options available on the free version of this app, as with all four of them, but at the end of each is a game.  On Ice Cream, there are balloons to pop, and by pushing the button on the bottom right more balloons float up.  All four apps are great for descriptions, following directions and are just plain fun for the kids.  I must admit I, myself, had a lot of fun creating the examples for the pictures! Also, at the end of each game you can "eat" the product by tapping on it and circles that look vaguely bite-sized disappear.

In the cake maker, my second favorite due to the great shapes of the cakes (which would be great for kids working in identifying shapes or making requests), has fireworks at the end which are quite fun for the younger kids.  Also, if the candles are on the cake they can be "blown out" using the candle button.

Pizza maker offers more great shapes, as well as a bunch of new options for sauce, cheese, meats, fish, fruits and vegetables.  Again there is a little end game which is reminiscent of fruit ninja where you slice up pizzas as they fly by and try to avoid the toys that are thrown in.

Cupcake maker is my least favorite, but still a great app!  At the end there are bubbles that are blown and popped along with lots of options for cake, icing, toppings and decorations.  

Each of these apps has excellent graphics, show up well on the tablet screen and feature smooth play with an "undo" button that the OCD kids (and adults) will like.  In the free versions ads are rarely triggered other than at the very beginning, and they are visually beautiful.  These would be great to add to any collection for expressive and receptive language, especially following directions.  Sequencing can also be targeted as the cake, cupcake, and pizza versions have the stages in which the products are cooked, decorated, and "eaten" at the end.

Great apps with very good potential for use in speech therapy sessions and at home for carry-over activities!

App review: Wombi Ice Cream Lite

I have recently fallen in love with the free and lite version of this great app Wombi Ice Cream Lite .  It is super cute and deals with a subject that most kids love: Ice Cream!

What is so great about this app?  It can be fantastic for following directions, giving directions, understanding negatives (the one that is not...) and memory.  I have found that nearly all my kids will request this as a reward once they've played it once, which makes for a great way to sneak in some more practice for their memory and following directions in a fun and creative way.

The idea is that there is a cast of three characters who place orders at your ice cream shop.  There are five flavors of ice cream and five cones and cups and you are responsible for figuring out what the person wants. It begins with simple orders of one flavor and continues to get more complex.

The only complaint that I have for this app is that it can be tricky to get more than one flavor to stick on the cones and you have to be sure to stack the second and third scoops to the sides to be able to pile on a fourth and fifth scoop.  This issue aside, I love this app.  I had purchased the full version, but I found that for following directions, having so many choices (an additional 5 flavors plus toppings) was just too much distraction.  It was fun just to play, but just got a little too complex for my younger crowd.

A very fun app that can be an excellent way to work in some memory and following directions in sessions or at home!

App Review: Line up

A the moment I have a lot of kids working on following directions and understanding basic concepts and Line Up is great for working on these issues.  This free app addresses patterns, following directions, colors, and size.  It's super cute as each pattern shuffles out and a white one walks in through the upper door.  Next you select what color (2 or 3 depending on the level) and size (at more advanced levels) and your person slides down the pole to join his buddies.  My kids will usually stay engaged for about 10 minutes, which is about as long as I would want to target this, so it's perfect.  I love the concept, the ability to choose difficulty level, and pattern work is something that can be boring for a lot of kids so this app can be very useful.  With some younger kids I also this for following directions and as a fun introduction to patterns and how to figure out "what comes next?"  

Give Line Up a try and I would also recommend any other apps that busy things comes up with, they are always well made, fun, and educational.

Review of three apps: Robots Are Taking Over!

I work with a lot of young kids, and one thing that most of them have in common is a love of robots.  These three apps are wonderful: Robot Puzzle , Robot Workshop , & Kids Robot Puzzle Factory.  Note: these are all apps that have a free version that can be upgraded to unlock the full app, I recommend trying out the free, but be prepared to buy them as they are really well done apps.  They are great for working on requesting, turn-taking, body parts and problem solving.  The kids on my caseload all seem drawn to these games, and frequently one of the first verbal requests they develop is "wobot!" I like that these games can be short, can be played multiple times, or can be played in order and engage them for a whole session.  There are some kids I've worked with that this is the only thing they want, therefore providing lots of requesting opportunities.  We also work on receptive language by giving and following directions and body parts.

The one pictured below is my favorite, Robot Puzzle.  It has several puzzle levels of increasing difficulty that are just fun to complete.  Also, when the puzzle is done kids yell "YAY!" and balloons are released on the screen that they can pop.  Not only do the clients enjoy the challenge of the puzzles, but also the reward and balloon popping as well!

 This next is from Robot Workshop.  It has all the same robots from the last app, but in this one you choose from those shown below and put together just one.  Fun, but not quite as engaging.

 This last one is Kids Robot Puzzle Factory.  A totally new cast of robots with a free version that includes 3 robots, or upgraded for $1.50 for 15 different robots.  They start out as just a shadow which are replaced by pictures as one is completed the first time.  These ones are a lot of fun as once they are put together they animate which my kids always seem to enjoy.

There is a lot of potential in these apps to target a myriad of areas if you take time to think about them.  These are fun, engaging, and motivating.  I use these at least once a week, and sometimes more as they make excellent rewards as well if the child is only allowed to play one or two puzzles.

Try them out and prepare to have kids requesting them at every session... which is great because now you have a bargaining chip to get them to try some other tasks that you've been trying to get them to do!

App Review:Counting Numbers Game for Kids

I just found this: Counting Numbers Game for Kids.  I recently started seeing a 6 year old who is having significant difficulty learning to recognize numbers in English and Spanish.  I found this app and it has been really fun for her to work on her numbers.  I usually have her say each target number within a game in English and Spanish or ask her to identify a target number in either or both languages.

There are several different number games, including connect the dots which morphs into a full picture once all the dots are connected.

It is a cute game with lots of potential for working on numbers and following directions, along with some descriptive language within the connect the dots activity.  It also includes opportunities for following directions and turn-taking.

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.

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.

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.

Three essential apps for the Android toting SLP

Hello all!  I know that sometimes the world of apps can be a little overwhelming, so I am here to offer some suggestions of apps that I have found to be the most helpful.

Note: I do not work for any of these companies and I get no compensation from them, I just got their apps and found them to be helpful.

The first app is Skitch this is a great app that I use at least once a day, and often more.  What's so great about it?  It allows you to draw on any picture file.  This means that you can scan worksheets, take pictures of books, items, or from other applications and draw on them with this app.  I usually use this for identifying concepts by scanning worksheets or saving them as a jpeg file.  I can then open them anytime and have my kids X out, circle, or their favorite... arrow to the named concept.  They can choose colors and either draw with a pen tool, or use the preset shapes.  This is also great because you can "undo" so if you want to model without leaving the mark you can easily undo your markup and let them take over.  Below is an example of markups on a "what does not belong" worksheet.  Just be sure to go into the app's settings and check the "keep tools active" box so that your tool of choice doesn't automatically revert to the pen tool.

Using Skitch to mark on a worksheet

My second app of choice is one that I recently found, Kid Creation (Kids Scene),  This app has been wonderful for creating "worksheets" on the go for basic concepts, language, and even articulation.  It is basically a sticker program that allows you to choose a background, choose characters and place them anywhere.  You can layer them to allow for "in front" or "behind" when working on prepositions as well as make them larger or smaller.  I love this app, and frequently make a picture with my kids and then save it and import it into skitch to test their grasp of the concepts.   The picture below was made with an articulation client working on /r/ in spontaneous sentences in all positions.

The third app that I highly recommend is the Disney app Where's my Water it is available for both Android and Apple operating systems and is a great therapy app for working on problem solving and as a reward.  All the kids I see love this app!  They will attempt the levels themselves, follow directions to complete ones that are more difficult, and use their expressive language to describe to me how to win the level.  I use this at least once per day.  The levels tend to be quick but later levels are quite challenging.  Not only is this a great app, but you can also get additional resources from the game's web page to bring in more of the story and provide additional language opportunities.  The main idea is that you dig through the dirt, around obstacles, and get Swampy water so he can take a bath.  Kids love it and it makes for an excellent addition to your therapy arsenal.

Give these a try and let me know what you think of them.  I am always happy to hear comments about what you have found useful so that I can add it to the blog!

Hope these give you a good start in the world of Android platform apps!