Best Speech Therapy Apps for Children

I would stalk the speech therapist at my school!

Did you know according to asha.org 40 million Americans have speech community problems? and by the first grade 5% of children have noticeably speech disorders. Over 3 million Americans have stuttering problems, and approximately 1 million Americans suffer from Aphasia. So yes! I was that special education teacher who followed their speech-pathologist around the school building all day, because they had all the tools and resources I needed to help teach my students with learning disabilities.

Speech therapist are hard to come by in the public school setting, and they’re the masterminds when helping me solve my problems at school. Which is why today I’m going to share with you the best speech apps that we like to use to help children with Speech disorders, Autism, AD/HD, and all other children that have a learning disability.

Little Bee Speech App

Articulation station from little bee speech app helps children learn how to pronounce and practice different sounds. This app helps children practice at the word, sentences, and story level in 22 sounds that target the initial, medical, and final positions of words. This app also has a variety of six different practice activities such as (flashcards, matching, rotating sentences, unique sentences, and stores 1 and 2.

Apraxia Therapy App

The Apraxia Therapy App from Tactus Therapy is a comprehensive app designed to help people suffering from apraxia, a speech disorder, to say what they want correctly and consistently. I like this app because it uses VSAT, or Video-Assisted Speech Therapy, to help users repeat what they hear and see by watching the model’s mouth movements on the video. The app encourages you to tap along in rhythm, and also speak in unison, which gives you a tactile and verbal experience. When the audio begins to fade, you will be prompted to continue repeating what you see by continuing with the video.

Speech Essentials App

This app is a complete articulation therapy program that includes  a wide variety of activities. These include flashcards with professional pictures and built in audio cues (word AND sentence level), a mirror function to allow children to see themselves while they practice forming sounds, and several engaging games to make practicing speech fun.

Articulate it! App by Smarty Ears

Articulate it app is a unique multi-player application created to help children improve their speech sound production. This app contains over 2000 images selected for working on English consonant sounds at the word, phrase, sentence and story level. It includes 72 stunning scenes targeting story level. Perfect for all levels of articulation/phonology therapy; potential targets include consonants, digraphs, and consonant clusters. 

Bolo App

As always I save the best for last for my diverse students that I love some much with the Bolo app. Which is a speech-based reading tutor app that helps kids learn to read textbooks. India’s first tutoring that helps improve children’s literacy levels in the country, especially in the rural North where Hindi is the predominant language. This app is designed for students aged 6 to 12, and it has a built-in “fun and helpful” reading buddy, ‘Diya’, a digital assistant in the form of a human toon. Diya nudges, aids, explains, and assists children as they read aloud. She can even explain the meaning of words. Kids can read all by themselves without parental intervention as Diya serves as a person aliased reading tutor anytime, anywhere, offering corrective feedback at every stage.

The app also uses of both voice and vernacular: two of the 3Vs Google is betting on to bring India’s next billion users to the internet. It includes 50 stories in Hindi and 40 in English. Over time, the difficulty level of stories changes as kids make reading progress. The app also allows them to play interesting word games and collect in-app rewards and badges.

Please feel free to comment below your favorite speech apps or apps that you use in your country or school.