One of my favorite things at the end of the year is all of the Top 10 lists that come out. I love lists. I used to read the “Book of Lists” in school. I even have an old cassette tape somewhere with the top 100 hits of 1986. Who remembers what the number one song was? I meant to do this in December, but it’s awards season, so I figure it’s still okay to put them out.
Stop by each day this week for a new “Top 5 list.”
Last December I wrote a post about my top 10 favorite speech and non speech related apps. You can check out that post HERE.
Although this is my top 5 week, I ended up choosing 8 apps that I purchased this year.
1. Odd Ones Out by Lucky Gecko apps I heard about this from another blog but I forgot which one. Since I am in middle/high school, this is a fun, quick app to work on what does not belong with my students. We also discuss WHY we chose the one we did.
2. Fun with Verbs and Sentences by Hamaguchi Apps I love this app for early sentence building and syntax. You can work on subject-verb-object or subject-verb-preposition. The child chooses which character they want (boy/girl/bear,) what the character will do and what they are doing it with or where they are located. Then a corresponding movie related to the sentence plays. Afterwards, the child is prompted to state the sentence. One of my favorite features is that you can choose your verb tense (present progressive, regular past tense, irregular past tense or random.)
3. Word Vault by Home-Speech-Home This a great resource for a variety of therapy targets. It has lists for articulation, phonology, language targets, and social/problem solving. This is a fantastic resource for any therapist-especially one who travels to different locations.
4. Zones of Regulation by Selosoft, Inc This app is a companion for the Zones of regulation program. Your character moves around a street and goes into colored bubbles or zones and answers questions related to the Zones terminology. You gain coins for each correct answer that you can use to buy things in the store.
5. Talking Train by All4mychild This is a simple app which uses a train graphic to support students in conversation, sequencing and main idea/details. Write the topic on the engine and then include three details on the cards. There is also an option to record your voice.
6. Apraxia 2 syllables by NACD I have the other 2 apps from NACD. This lets you choose words based on place of articulation. For example you could work on bilabial-bilabial words or bilabial-alveolar.
7. Listen Close Articulation by Erik X Raj I have several of his apps and find them to be great for my middle to high school students. I just bought this one so I haven’t used it a lot. This app is similar to game of Simon. You get 4 words and the a screen comes up with 4 faces. It starts with one word and then the next turn is 2 words. You continue on remembering the sequence as you state your artic words. One of the things that I really like about this app is that it helps with carryover of skills. In order to be successful, the student has to focus on the sequence of the words vs. completing focusing on how they are producing the words.
8. Describe it to Me by Smarty Ears. When you start the game, you get a picture. You choose which question you want the child to answer about the object: (category, function, parts, location, what it looks like and extra questions) You can choose between receptive tasks with 4 multiple choice answers or expressive with options. It also comes with homework sheets which I’ve never seen in an app before.
Have you gotten any new apps? What were your favorites for this year. I’d love to hear about it. As always, if you liked this post or thought there was good information please consider sharing on Facebook or Pinterest by clicking on the buttons below.
Fun with Verbs and Sentences is one of my favorites too! My students with ASD absolutely cannot get enough of it!