Yipp Yapp Yay Apps!

If you use a lot of apps in therapy, you've GOT to check out Yapp Guru if you haven't already.

I use my iPad regularly in therapy, so I'm always on the lookout for quality and engaging apps to use for my students.  Back in November at ASHA Convention, I was able to connect with so many amazing people and companies.  After meeting with the folks over at Yapp, I was so excited to come on board as an expert reviewer.  :)

 A little about the site:

• It was created to provide a credible and easy-to-use resource for people using apps in therapy and education.
• Reviews are completed by "experts" who have tried out the app and can give you meaningful pros and cons about them.
• Yapp Guru has a large database of speech therapy apps that have been reviewed and voted on.  
• YOU can even vote for your favorite apps by clicking on the "vote" button under each app.
• It's super easy to use and navigate the site.  You can search by an app name, keyword, or browse by therapy category.

It should really be a go-to place for you before you spend your hard on $$ purchasing any app.

I'm happy to say that I'm now an App Guru Expert!  You can check out my reviews HERE.  

We're even having a little fun of our own and challenging each other to create and link up lots of fabulous reviews for you!  Let's see who can write the most reviews during the month of March!  :)

I love a good contest!  What do you think?  Are you a Yapp fan?  What apps would you like to see reviews on?  :)

Junganew: A Herd of Sounds ~ App Review!

I've got a new and very unique app to share with you today!  Let's check out Junganew's A Herd of Sounds app for /s/.  Disclaimer: Though this app was provided to me, the thoughts and opinions are my own.

This game is different from other articulation apps in that it has a story format.  You follow the adventures of Theo the tree frog and help him work on his /s/ sound.  It's great for auditory bombardment and discrimination as well as practice for all positions of words.  Below you'll find the home screen.

The Play button starts the story from the beginning.  Starting there sets the stage for the story and gives you some great auditory bombardment.

Mirror models are a great feature for students to learn to critique themselves and see what they can do.  Follow along with Ms. Snake and she'll help you practice.  It allows students to see themselves like a mirror and even records them saying the sound.

The Map allows you to go immediately to any of the 5 places that Theo travels to in the story.

The For Adults tab gives you information about the app and directions for each section of the game.

Now for the game.  The story takes you to different places that allow you to practice /s/ in different positions.
Sand Central Station: You start by doing some auditory discrimination/isolation tasks.  It actually can be a little tricky distinguishing between /th/ and /s/.

There are 4 icons in the corners.  The leaves let you go to the next and previous pages.  The house brings you back home and the compass brings you to the map.

Here you also work on initial /s/ with a hide-and-seek game.  Sal A Mander gives you clues to where he is hiding - all places that begin with /s/.

For medial /s/, you play an associations game with the butterfly.  Find the item that goes with her outfit.

The other medial /s/ game is fun and hands-on.  Trace the different shapes with both hands at the same time! The shape reveals a medial /s/ word.

Next, you travel to the fun house where you work on final /s/.  The final /s/ games are cute carnival ones.  The first is Balloon Pops.  Find the balloon that rhymes with the word given.  Great for practicing rhyming skills as well!

The other is Guess the Goose.  You have to pick the correct goose based on Theo's clues.

There's also a voicing game where you practice turning your /s/ into /z/.  Tap on the characters to hear them say their /z/ sounds.

Moving on to the last adventure: s-blends.  Just add consonants to the blender and make some s-blend cookies for Theo.

 
Practice s-blends/plurals at the ends of words by putting toppings on the cupcakes.

At the end of the game, the characters have a little party to celebrate Theo learning to say his /s/ for show and tell.

Grab this app from iTunes for only $4.99!

What I love about this app:

• It's very unique and story-based, making it engaging for young students.
• There are a variety of activities to provide lots of opportunity for practice.
• The characters and graphics are super cute!
• The mirror model activity is prompted after each game, allowing for lots of self-check.
• The price is very reasonable at only $4.99.

What could make it better:

• The game is not super straightforward.  It took me a little while to figure it all out.
• You can't take data in the app.  Some activities are drill-oriented but not all.  You just have to tell your students when they need to repeat words.  
• Young students would not be able to use this on their own.  They would need specific instructions from you on when they need to speak at the different activities.
• It provides targets at the word level.  However, you could easily adapt some activities for sentences.

I'd love to see more stories for the different sounds, since this one only targets /s/, /z/, and s-blends.  Overall, I think it's super cute and motivating for lots of the kids on my caseload!  What do you think?

Appy New Year Part 1! {InTense Pro}

Happy New Year!  It's "Appy" New Year on the blog today.  I've got a brand new app to tell you about and a giveaway too!  It's called InTense Pro, and it's designed by speech-language professionals as well as video game developers.  What makes it fun for the kiddos is that it combines learning verb tenses with a cute carnival game.

This app starts off by letting you create a profile for students.  Just tap + new profile to get started.

A cool option that you get is the ability to put the parent's email into the student's profile.  This is great if you frequently want to keep parents updated on progress.  You could also add your own email in place of it and send the results to yourself.

On each student profile, you can select the question types, tenses to practice, progress charts, and total stats.

Select up to 5 players in a group to get started and tap the let's play button.

There are several types of questions that are presented.  Tap the speaker button to have the question read aloud.  Some questions even have speakers for the question and answers with no text.

Follow the directions to complete the different types of questions.  After the student answers correctly, they earn tickets.  Keep track of how many tickets have been earned by looking at the righthand side of the screen.  There are 3 different types and each represents a different game that can be played for reinforcement.  More on that in a second.

After one student answers several questions, they are prompted to pass it to the next person in the group.

They take their turn answering questions and earning tickets.  They have to answer correctly on the first attempt for it to be counted as correct.

Whenever you want to reinforce, simply tap on one of the tickets to begin your game.  Depending on the ticket pressed, you'll enter a certain game board scene.  Tapping on a pod will allow you to complete a fun activity.

For this activity, you have to launch a cannonball to hit some top hats...kind of like angry birds.  :)

Tap the back button in the corner to return to grammar questions.  After playing tap on the settings icon next to the student's name to access their profile.  From their you can view their scores and email the results.  The dropdown menu at the top of the screen lets you decide exactly what scores you'd like to view.

Grab this app in the iTunes store for $18.99 HERE.

Things I loved about this app:

• The graphics are super cute and kid-friendly.
• The game aspect of it is very motivating for kids.  The games are fun and engaging and challenging enough for my older students.
• It's easily adaptable to fit your specific needs.  You can tailor it to target exactly what the student is working on in therapy.
• You can even choose the types of questions that work best for your student.  If you want all multiple choice with visual text, then you have the option to choose that.
• I like that you can have several students playing at a time, and that they answer a few questions before passing.  This works great in group.  You could have them all working on something while waiting their turn, since it's not going to be right away.  (I'm a multi-tasker ;))

Things that could make it better:

• The main thing that I didn't love about this app is that some of the questions are confusing.  The visuals they give are a little tough.  See below.  The correct answer is the one on the left.

• Sometimes the answers are tricky as well.  The one below asks for a 2-word past tense which threw me off a little.

At least you do have the option of viewing the correct answer if you are unsure.  And it will let you keep guessing at the multiple choice items until you get it right.

Overall, I think this is a great app and my students love it.  My friends at Algoma even gave me a code to give one away for free!!  Just enter via the Rafflecopter below!! Good luck and Happy New Year!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Verb Quest App Review & GIVEAWAY

Smarty Ears has recently released a new app called Verb Quest.  It's cute, kid-friendly, and has a fun witch theme.  So many of my students have difficulty understanding verbs.  Having an app that targets verbs specifically is great for addressing these skills and collecting good data.

Check it out!

Tap "play" on the home screen to get started and add players.

Choose the level at which you'd like each player to work by tapping modify.  There are 20 levels that include simple, irregular, past/present/future, progressives, modals, and much more.  (It gets really complex!) If you master the level by getting 10 sentences correct without a hint, it will automatically progress you to the next level.

Hit start to begin.  To play choose the correct word or phrase that fits correctly into the target sentence.  Once you get it right, you have the option of recording yourself repeating the sentence to practice speaking correctly.  I LOVE this option.

The target screen shows whose turn it is at the top of the screen, the accuracy at the bottom left, and a hint button on the bottom right.  You can change the settings by tapping the top left corner.  You have the option of changing the background, displaying the hint and accuracy, using automatic progression, and recording correct responses.

When finished tap "done" to end the game.  This takes you to the reports room where you can view each student's progress.  You can analyze their data by session or by level.

After a student completes a level, they win a virtual trophy to put on their virtual shelf.  ;)  This for some reason, is super motivating for my kids.  Sometimes they ask if they can play "the trophy game" to earn more for their shelves.  Haha. 

Recap of what I love about this app:

• It's unique.  There really aren't that many other apps out there that specifically target verbs.
• The graphics are appealing and motivating for students.
• You can record your student repeating the sentence using the correct verb form.  
• It automatically progresses you to the next level once you've successfully mastered a level.
• The rewards are motivating for students.

What could make it better:

• The hint option just gives the student the correct response.  I wish it would eliminate an answer choice instead.

Verb Quest is $19.99 on iTunes.  Check it out HERE.  

Smarty Ears gave me a free copy of the app to giveaway!!  Enter in the Rafflecopter below to win a copy of your own.  The opinions of this app review are my own.  I was given a copy of this app to review, but no other compensation was provided.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Appy Weekend ~ Articulation Test

It's the weekend, y'all.  That probably doesn't mean much to those of you who are still enjoying the lazy days of summer.  School is in full swing down in my neck of the woods.  I'm here to tell you a little about a brand new app by Little Bee Speech.  You know, the guys who made the fabulous Articulation Station app?  It's called Articulation Test Center, and get ready to be so excited!

Though I was provided with a copy of this app, all the opinions expressed are my own.

A screening test and a full test comes all in this one app.  The main difference between them is that the screener is shorter and only tests sounds that are appropriate for the age you select.

The full test has lots more areas to customize plus a nice, colorful speech sample probe.

Each item has green tiles at the top to show which sounds are being targeted.  Tapping the picture will give you a verbal prompt to elicit a spontaneous naming of the picture.  You also have the option to record their responses, add notes, and change the settings.

Tap the green tile to indicate that the student produced an error, which causes the tile to turn red.  Tapping it again turns it yellow, which means that the production was approximate.

You can note the type or error produced by tapping the down arrow on the right.  A drop down menu appears for you to note the substitution or phonological process.  Slide the red letter away to note an omission of the sound.



One of my absolute favorite things about this app is the full test has scenes for eliciting a speech sample.

Record the child telling a story about the scene with the microphone tab on the bottom left.  If they need additional prompting, tap any picture to magnify it and read a prompt.

How cool is that?!  After you record the sample you can transcribe it and note intelligibility on the screen provided.  It also has a space for you to calculate specific intelligibility percentage when transcribing.

The screen above is part of the test summary page.  It gives you words tested, errors marked, speech sample information, reported findings, and a recommendation.  This test is not normed, so you will not get standard scores or percentile ranks.

You can watch the full tutorials for the screener here, the full test here, and additional updates here.

Things I dig about this app:

• Administering this test is very easy and straightforward.
• The screener only screens the necessary phonemes relevant for that child's age.
• You can pick and choose the areas you wish to target for the full test or select all of them.
• There are options to notate the type of error the child produced, including phonological processes.
• The phonological process sections have a little definition screen that pops up when you tap one, so that you can make sure you are choosing the correct one.
• You can even record their productions and go back and edit the results later, if you need to quickly make your way through the test.
• The speech sample option is amazing.  I might buy this app just for that!  Being able to elicit a sample, record it, transcribe it, and track indelibility all in one app is a win in my book!
• The report section gives you tons of data!  It'd be great to print and add to any report or to track progress for an IEP.

Things that could make it better:

• The test is not normed.  In many districts you need a normed referenced test to qualify a child for speech.  While this app is great for data, I wouldn't be able to use it by itself on an initial report.
• While most of the screening tests for the different ages are shorter, the 6 and older screener is almost as long as the full test.  I'd probably just go ahead and give him the full one.
• I'd love to be able to code an error as being an interdentalization, lateral airflow, or glottal stop.  You could just note it in the "notes" section, but there is no option for those on the drop down menu that I could see.
• The app is a little pricey at $49.99, even though you do get a lot of bang for your buck.

You can grab this app from Little Bee Speech at iTunes HERE!

And guess what?!  August 12-14 both Articulation Test Center and Articulation Station will be 30% off!  Woohoo!