App Development Update

It has been a little over a month since I wrote my first blog about my app. So far the main characters have been developed. The main characters needed a bit of  tweaking. It's been a week now and I am still waiting for the character updates. I emailed the project manager twice in 2 days and hadn't heard back from her so I emailed one of the owners. Heard back from the project manager 10 minutes later.

Apps to Use for Descriptives

When I write about apps, I often have a debate with myself about whether or not to blog about apps that are not worth downloading, even for free. Inevitably, I mention them and then delete them from my iPad. For now, I'll continue with that policy thinking that maybe someone may find the app useful.

I have 7 apps I placed in the Descriptives category.  I've stretched the use of some of the apps a bit so that they fit into this category.

Four of the apps focus on emotions. They are Feel Electric, Touch and Learn Emotions, ABA Flash Cards and Games-Emotions and Emoticons.

The Electric Company has produced an excellent app for emotions and is by far the best of the bunch.  Feel Electric is animated, interactive and offers a variety of options to learn a range of 50 emotions. The child starts with What's the Word to see faces of real people expressing each emotion. From there, the child can select her emotions at the moment, create a diary of emotions, manipulate the facial features of creature to show specific emotions and play a Mad Libs type game that, when completed, will create a zany story based on the words selected. There are three fun interactive games where the child needs to pair the facial expression with the written word. Each of these 3 games is scored. The app also allows one to add ones own pictures, music and videos. I also recommend this app for parents, therapists and psychologists who wish to gain insight into a child's emotions when talking about them is hard.

Ages: 5+
Rating: +++++
Developer: The Electric Company by Sesame Street

Cost: Free

The Touch and Learn Emotions app is interactive in that a narrator names an emotion and the user points to the appropriate picture. The pictures are photographs of children and adults; there are four photographs per screen. One does not simply find the individual showing the named emotion. Rather, one needs to distinguish between a toddler, child, adult, girl, boy, kid and teenager based on the instruction. Also, one may need to identify more than one picture depicting that emotion. For instance, the narrator may direct the user to point to the girls who are sad. Besides adjectives, some targeted words are nouns or verbs. In Settings, one has the option to present nouns only, adjectives and nouns only, verbs and nouns only or progressive difficulty. This is a great free app.

Ages: 4-7
Rating: ++++
Developer: Alligator Apps
Cost: Free

ABA Flash Cards and Games can be used as a precursor to Touch and Learn Emotions. The pictures are the same, but presented one at a time. The photos are clear and the corresponding word is written below it. Each emotion is clearly narrated. The Settings screen allows one to customize the pictures and words.

Ages: 3-5
Rating: +++
Developer: Alligator Apps
Cost: Free

Abby Emoticons Maker is a frenzied app. The constant sounds emanate from the annoying round ball. The facial expressions on the "emoticon" are in constant facial contortion mode and have nothing to do with the facial expressions on the ball. Turning of the sound helps reduce the frenzied level a bit. I would think twice about using this app with children who are excitable, which eliminates all but the calmest. Emotions are presented by a round yellow ball with eyes and a mouth. One selects the eyes and mouth out of a choice of 6 each. The eyes and mouth one selects do not necessarily offer a clear emotional picture. For instance, one can select crying eyes with a smiling mouth.  Also, the free version of this app has a large strip of advertising at the bottom of the screen. This app is in the to be deleted (tbd) category.

Ages: 3-5
Rating: +
Developer: Arch Square
Cost: $1.99 for the full version

If one's goal is to teach big and small, Big and Small is an app that focuses on those adjectives using letters of the alphabet. Two letters, one big and one small appear on the screen. The narrator says, "Take a big/small _________." The user has to tap on the either the large or small version of the letter. Some letters appear as upper case and others as lower case. The narrator sounds like she is sitting in an echo chamber, making the quality of sound mediocre. The app does provide scoring. The lite version of this app has constantly changing advertising at the bottom of the app. Another app tbd.

Ages: 3-5
Rating: +
Developer: Sanghoon Lee
Cost: $4.99 for the full version

I put Build It Up in the descriptives category because one can easily use this simple app to teach large/big, small/little and their appropriate superlatives. The child needs to stack blocks or rings in the correct order from large to small. Colors are also easy to teach with this app.

Ages: 2-3
Rating: ++
Developer: MyFirstApp
Cost: Free for the stacking blocks and rings.

Kids Juke Box Animals is an animated story app that can be used to teach the concepts long and big.  The story is presented as a song. It is a cute app that is appropriate for children 1-2 years old.

Ages: 1-2
Rating: ++
Developer: WagleBagle
Cost: free

Is the iPad Worth the Investment?

Some colleagues may be wondering if they should purchase the iPad to use as a therapy tool. I wanted to share my thoughts on this topic in an article I wrote for the Independent Clinician (http://independentclinician.com/is-an-ipad-for-speech-therapy-worth-the-investment/).

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I love my iPad. I bought it when it first came out. I cannot say why I decided that I must have it. I am not a techie, nor had I ever had to have the latest and greatest new tech device. That is my husband’s department. But, I surprised my husband when I announced that I wanted the iPad. At the time, I did not know what its potential, as a device for our profession, would be. Now I know. It’s potential as a therapy tool is huge. But is it worth the investment? Yes and no.

By now I have downloaded about 500 apps. After reviewing each of the apps, there is good and bad news about them. The good news is that more and more apps are being developed that utilize the animation and interactivity potential of the iPad. There are a few creative and fun apps that can be adapted for our use in therapy. They are primarily apps for vocabulary, reading or fun game apps. Now, here is the not so good news. To date, speech recognition technology does not support the type of work we do when we work on an individual’s sound system. Thus, sound production is compromised in apps that target sounds in isolation, syllables or words (minimal pairs and articulation apps) making this type of app quasi usable. That cannot be helped right now. Also, there is no app that can accurately recognize correct or incorrect production of a sound or word. In this respect, the speech pathologist must work with the child in the same way she does when using paper materials. At present, apps for language hold the greatest potential use for our profession. However, there is a paucity of language therapy apps that utilize the capabilities of the iPad. For creative speech therapists, this is an open field.

Back to my original question: Is the iPad worth the investment? If one is a speech pathologist just starting out in the profession and wishes to build a library of standard materials available in catalogs, the iPad is worth considering. Instead of buying the standard paper materials, one can download an app of the same type. One then has to weigh whether the initial minimum $500.00 cost of the iPad plus the sometimes steep prices of these paper identical apps is worth it. Another consideration is the fact that if one works for a school district or clinic, the materials are already available in paper form. If one’s therapy sessions include fun games used to motivate, then the iPad is wonderful. It is an extremely motivating device and there are a number of fun apps one can download. The iPad should also be a serious consideration for speech pathologists who work with children needing augmentative communication. However, the prices for AAC apps are among the highest.

So, is the iPad worth the investment? If your plan is to use it for reasons beyond therapy, it is worth the investment. It is a wonderful gadget with a multitude of uses. If your plan is to buy it primarily to use in therapy, then you may want to wait until the therapy apps catch up to the technology of the iPad. I expect that apps for our profession will soon improve in quality, so that having the iPad will greatly enhance what we do.

Reasoning Skills---Associations

There are many apps that one can adapt for use when targeting reasoning skills. So far, I've found 6 apps that work directly on associations.

Drag and Match offers a 12 different games in this app. Among them are 4 games that can be used to teach associations. The games are: match an animal to its home, match a food to the animal that eats it, match an object that goes with another such as arrow with bow, and match a tool to an object such as a needle with thread and match the dots on dice with the written number. In each of the games the child drags the object on the left to its match on the right. The pictures are simple and clear.

Ages: 3-5
Rating: +++
Developer: Cambui Labs
Cost: $.99

Matching Jobs is an app that has the child match a worker with a vehicle. The child has to drag the worker to one of three vehicles at the bottom of the screen. The app names the worker and the word for the worker is written at the top of the screen. Once the child has made the correct worker-vehicle association one hears clapping and a new screen appears. The new screen shows the worker next to the correct vehicle. A narrator again names the worker and and tells the child, "The_________ drives a _______." (Again, the written word for the worker appears on this page along with the the words, "Drives a ______." ) One then hears the sound that vehicle makes such as a siren, honk, etc. The pictures are attractive and offer other language opportunities such as talking about what the worker does and where he may be going in the vehicle.

Ages: 3-6
Rating: ++++
Developer: HippoPoPoPo
Cost: Free for 5 workers. The cost to unlock an addition 11 workers is $.99


Vehicle Matching also developed by Hippo PoPoPo works along the same line as Matching Jobs. With this app the child matches the vehicle to a location such a a fire truck to a fire station. Unfortunately, the narration for this app is monotone and boring. A slight accent was also noticeable.

Ages: 3-6
Rating: ++++
Developer: HippoPoPoPo
Cost: Free for 5 vehicles. The cost to unlock an addition 15 vehicles is $.99

Together offers two levels of association. The first level has the child match an object to one of two at the bottom of the screen. The second level increases the level of difficulty by offering three objects instead of two at the bottom of the screen. The objects are presented in photograph form. Scoring in percent is visible in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Ages: 2-4
Rating: +++
Developer: Different Roads to Learning
Cost: Free

In one of my earlier blogs I briefly reviewed the Match It Up apps. All Match It Up apps show a central box with an object. Surrounding the box are seven pictures. Of the three, I placed the Match It Up 3  into my associations file. In this app, the center box has an item in it. Surrounding the box are seven pictures. The child has to find the picture that one associates with the item in the box. The first two games are free. One has the child match the animal to its food. The other has the child find the part that goes best with the item in the box. For instance, in the center is a flower pot. The child has to drag the flower into the box. I can also see using this game when working on part-whole concepts.

Ages: 3-5
Rating: +++
Developer: My First Apps
Cost: Free for the first two games. Additional seven games are $.99.

Reasoning Skills--- Categorization

Brain-Go! is a categorization app that tells the child, "Put the object that does not belong into the trash can." This is good exposure to the categorical exclusion concept "does not belong."  There are opportunities for the child to talk about why the selection does not belong and what is the name of the category for the objects that do go together. Discussion of similarities and differences is another option when using this app. The pictures are photos of real objects. There are 10 levels to this app. I spoke with the developer, a teacher/tutor, about the additional levels. She said that they are similar in difficulty to the first level. She said that the tenth level is more difficult. The idea of the different levels is to provide additional practice to children who need help with categorization.

Ages: 3-6 for the first level
Cost: The first level is free. The other 10 levels can be purchased for $1.99.
Rating: ++
Developer: Brain-Go

Clean Up: Category Sorting displays either a toy, food or article of clothing in the middle of the screen. At the bottom of the screen are a basket, toy box and closet. The child needs to determine if the object appearing on the screen goes into the basket, toy box or closet. The child drags the object into one of the three. A happy face star briefly appears if the object has been correctly place before a new object appears. The app provides a score of percentage correctly sorted in the upper right hand corner of the screen and in a window once the game has ended. This app also provides vocabulary opportunities in the form of object naming before it is sorted.

Ages: 3-5
Cost: free until January/February at which time the apps will be updated.
Rating: ++
Developer: Different Roads to Learning

MyFirstApp created Families 1 and Families 2. They were reviewed August 26, 2011 in Categories, Opposites and More.

Next blog: Reasoning Skills---Associations