10 Apps that Stand the Test of Time

I was given each of these apps so I could put them to the test and offer a first person, hands on review.  This list of 10 apps that stand the test of time is meant to guide other educators and caregivers towards the apps that I have found to be most beneficial, not only when my son was younger, but also at work with clients on my pediatric, speech-language caseload. The ranking is in no particular order of preference.

Conversation Builder

Conversation Builder Teen ($29.99) by Mobile Education Store:  I cannot say enough about this dynamic app that supports improving social skills for teenagers! I have used  it with middle school clients diagnosed with autism. To say this app is a must have for anyone needing support with pragmatic skills would be a HUGE understatement!!

Tense Builder

Tense Builder ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store:  This is another, fantastic app by Kyle Tomson. It addresses every, possible verb tense in a bright, entertaining way that the first graders in my life really enjoy. Users watch a short cartoon video and then match the appropriate picture to the target sentence. For a closer look at this gem, head to my detailed post here.

Syntax City

Syntax City ($19.99) by Smarty Ears:  Great app that targets a good variety of syntax in a fun, categorical way. Visit several different locations in the city and earn prizes by choosing the correct word to complete sentences. Motivating, educational, and fun for my young, elementary students. I have more information and images to see of this app in my detailed review post.  

Rainbow Sentences

Rainbow Sentences ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store:
The object of this game is to unscramble words to form grammatically correct sentences. It offers multiple settings and various levels of difficulty. I personally like how the mixed up words maintain the correct punctuation and capitalization, which act as clues for word ordering while offering visual reminders to use these techniques while writing too! Children earn pieces of a puzzle by answering several questions accurately.  I provide even more details and images in my post: Constructing Grammatically Correct Sentences with Rainbow Sentences app.

Preposition Builder

Preposition Builder ($7.99) by Mobile Education Store:
What can I say, I’m a Mobile Education Store Fan! They cover all the speech language therapy bases!! This app teaches prepositions in related groups. Once you successfully fill-in the correct prepositions in all sentences, you unlock an opportunity to watch a short, animated video clip.

Articulation Station

Articulation Station (.99-$5.99) by Little Bee Speech:  The app itself comes free with one target sound, /p/, and then you purchase other sounds at various prices. Speech pathologists will want the entire collection, while parents need only purchase sound targets applicable for their children.  No need to dig for flashcards because this puts them all in the palm of your hand. You can work at word, phrase, sentence, or story levels and set sound targets for all positions in words.  In addition to the flashcards, there are memory games built into every sound target, making carryover practice easy and fun!

Expressive

Expressive ($59.99) by Smarty Ears apps: This is an affordable augmentative and alternative communication speech generating app primarily used for individuals who are minimally verbal.  For complete details and images, please see my post Expressive by Smarty Ears Apps- An Affordable AAC app.

Expressive Builder

Expressive Builder ($9.99) by Mobile Education Store:  I use this app to address building grammatically and syntactically correct sentences. The levels of play make this a nice tool for teaching and assessing speech and language skills!

Custom Boards

Custom Boards (PRICELESS) by Smarty Ears apps: Incredible, comprehensive, amazing, dynamic – these are just some of the descriptive words that came to describe this app!  Basically, Custom Boards allows you to create whatever you need for children of all ages using any of the 35,000 “Smarty Ears” symbols, your own library photos, or Google search images.  You can edit the text font, image size, and change the background colors for images to help them stand out more and create just about anything from Bingo games to daily routine visual schedules.

Little Stories

Little Stories ($59.99) by Little Bee Speech:  It is impossible for me to tell you everything about this app in one paragraph, so I want you to download the free version and sample three stories for yourself.  You can target speech, language, and literacy in this dynamic app that contains 82 stories at tiered reading levels. Take a look at what you get with each story:

Reading & Literacy

• Phonemic awareness
• Reading fluency
• Reading comprehension
• Story structure awareness
• Story tradition and genre exploration

Receptive Language Skills

• Attention and listening
• Vocabulary acquisition
• Story structure and comprehension
• Question processing

Expressive Language Skills

• Speech production
• Story sequencing
• Story retelling
• Question answering