Why Are These The Best Speech Therapy Apps For Adults
Creating the best speech therapy apps for adults is our passion. Weve been making & using speech therapy apps since 2011, and in that time weve seen a LOT of apps and have plenty of experience with what works and what doesnt work.
All the apps on this free list have been used in a clinical setting, vouched for by a practicing clinician, and/or recommended by a client who found success using it. For every app on this list, there were two that were downloaded & discarded for one reason or another. Maybe they crashed, had errors, or showed too many ads. Perhaps the others just overlapped with apps that did more or did the same thing but better. Often speech therapy apps are aimed at children with cartoon graphics and can be demeaning towards adults with communication problems. Those didnt make this list.
What Will I Find In The List
Youll find 170 apps for:
Each app has an icon, description, price, and up to 4 links:
- Link to a paid app on the App Store for iPad/iPhone
- Link to a free app or trial version on the App Store
- Link to a paid app on the Google Play Store for Android users
- Link to a free app or trial version on the Google Play Store
Building Up Breath Control
Print out reading material then add slash marks between words to denote a new breath group. Where you put the slash marks will depend on each patients skill level.
Patient Instructions:
Use your breath support strategies while saying the following. You may take breaths as needed.
For more respiration exercises and materials, visit our shop
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Other Ways We Use Apps In Speech Therapy
Sometimes individuals need breaks during speech therapy sessions, and apps can be used as entertainment or brain breaks throughout them. You can set a timer on the tablet/iPad too, which will go off after a certain amount of time. Ive even used the timer feature on my iPad when indirectly targeting executive functioning/time management skills!
While intervention sessions and time at home shouldnt always include technology, sometimes its a great tool for clients that have more difficulty attending and can be a fun way to target and develop an array of speech and language areas.
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What Aptus Speech Therapy Apps Are Available For Free Download
We currently have 4 speech therapy apps for free download: Inference Pics Lite, Empathy Pics Liteare free autism apps for iPad/iPhone. Comprehension Toolboxis a free aphasia app on iPhone/iPad. Keywords Understanding Lite is suitable for adults with aphasia and children with autism or delayed language.
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Follow Directions By Teach Speech Apps
As the name suggests, this is a great app to teach directions. Further, you can teach prepositions, temporal concepts, and much more. This app can be used from pre-school to 4th grade. Overall, it offers a quick and easy way to practice. Especially for the kids. It also has a 10-repetition drill for each direction following activity. In other words, if youre child is struggling to listen to you, use this app.
Speech Therapy After Stroke Or Traumatic Brain Injury
Our brains have neuroplasticity, Lough says. This means our brain can rewire itself. So, if you have damage to one area, you can use healthy areas of the brain to take over the damaged area.
This is how we build new neural connections, which is what speech therapy exercises help patients do after a stroke.
For example, a stroke or other traumatic brain injury can cause aphasia. A person may have trouble finding words, forming sentences, or understanding conversation or what theyre reading.
Lough says that she might do exercises that teach word finding strategies or sentence formulation strategies. We might just work to find strategies to make the stronger areas of the brain take over, she says.
If the stroke has caused dysarthria, the exercises are different. In this case, Lough would work to strengthen their voice or their breath support for their voice, and she may work on stress patterns in sentences or inflection to make speech sound more natural. Often with dysarthria, we do exercises to strengthen the tongue, lips, and jaw, as well as exercises to practice overemphasizing their words so that they can say their words more clearly. Well also do exercises that involve slowing their rate of speech, which allows their mouth more time to clearly produce their words, she says.
SLPs may recommend speech therapy exercises at home, but they tailor those exercises to each patient. Its all about helping people build on their strengths, she says.
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How To Practice Light Articulatory Contact Exercise
You can learn light contacts at home from the video.
Your speech therapist will help you practice light articulatory contact on all consonants. You will learn how to implement it on single-syllable words/sounds. Gradually, you will learn to apply the technique on initial, medial, and final positions.
For example â you will learn how to establish light articulatory contact on the consonant /p/ in pink, poppy, and top.
Soon, you will graduate to phrase level, sentence level, and conversational level applications of light articulatory contact.
Once you learn this technique from your therapist, you can always practice it at home alone or with family.
Lite Versions Of Speech Therapy Apps
Lite versions of speech therapy apps are free to download . These are very helpful as they allow you to try out a free sample of the full app version. However, Apple and Google generally dont like lite versions of apps so we may see fewer lite versions of speech therapy apps available to download for free in the future.
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How To Choose Speech Therapy Software
Speech therapy includes a broad array of treatments for a large variety of challenges and disorders. As such, the sheer scope of available potential software and materials available can seem staggering and daunting.
When shopping, it can help to start with your therapy goal in mind and identify a list of features youd like, working backward.
Best For Toddlers: Splingo
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Not very customizable
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Some users complain of frequent issues with sound
The Splingo app from the Speech and Language Store offers children a way to learn listening and language skills by playing a fun, interactive game with aliens and spaceships. The app was designed by speech and language therapists to focus on nouns, verbs, prepositions, and adjectives. It comes with a range of age possibilities, including early language development to a much more complex level of combining several aspects of language at once.
In order to customize the app to each level, Splingo breaks the content down further into four groups.
- Level 1: Uses one main word. Appropriate for 18 months and older.
- Level 2: Uses two main words for kids with a developmental level of 2 to 3 years old.
- Level 3: Uses three main words for kids with a developmental level of 3 to 4 years old.
- Level 4: Uses four main words for kids with a developmental level of 4 years old and older.
The Splingo app cost is free but has add-ons you can purchase. It is available for iOS.
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Can Speech Therapy Be Done At Home
Speech therapy can sometimes be done at home by parents and other caregivers. If youre concerned about any aspect of your childs speech or language development, you should first see your childs pediatrician.
If it turns out your child has a mild delay or articulation issue, at-home speech therapy can be especially helpful. More serious problems, such as speech regression, should definitely be addressed by a licensed speech therapist.
You should also consider your childs age and temperament when making this decision. It can be difficult to do at-home speech therapy if they are very young or get frustrated easily. Professional help may also be recommended if your child has another developmental issue in addition to a speech delay.
If you want to try speech therapy at home as a starting point or to supplement professional therapy, there are plenty of resources, including language development games and toys, books, and speech therapy apps.
How Does Speech Therapy Help
Speech disorders are common among those with cerebral palsy. In fact, a 2012 study conducted by Swedish researchers found that speech problems affect more than half of all children with cerebral palsy.
Some children with cerebral palsy have difficulty controlling the muscles in their face, throat, neck and head. This can lead to troubles with speech, chewing and swallowing. It can also cause drooling and affect overall ability to interact and learn. Those who also have difficulty hearing may have a hard time understanding spoken language.
Speech and language therapy seek to improve a childs speech and communication by strengthening the muscles used for speech, increasing oral motor skills and by improving their understanding of speech and language. It also can help with swallowing disorders, like dysphagia.
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Math In Everyday Life: Shopping Spree
We originally called this activity Weekly Ads.but that didnt sound as fun as a shopping spree! Come up with cognitive speech therapy activities for adults around planning and creating a shopping list.
To keep this activity functional, find advertisements for products that fit your patients interest. For example, if they love gardening, use a garden centers weekly ad to plan next springs garden. Or if its around the holidays and they have young grandchildren they adore, pick up a big-box store or toy store catalog to create a gift list.
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Who Uses Speech Therapy Apps
Some speech and language disorders are linked to medical conditions, such as stroke or brain injury, while others have developmental delays or congenital anomalies at their roots.
There are many common reasons that an individual may pursue speech therapy or use a speech therapy app. They often play a key role in rehabilitation from injury or to improve speech difficulties caused by:
- Damage to articulatory muscles or speech organs
- Respiratory weaknesses
Speech-language pathologists and therapists are professionals who specialize in working with patients to diagnose, evaluate, and treat communicative difficulties for a better quality of life.
Given the great range of different challenges they are trained to deal with, they often use a wide array of interventions in their treatment plans.
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Keyword Understanding Receptive Language App For Children
Auditory processing difficulties, repetitive language disorder, reduced attention spans and autism spectrum disorders are very common. However, finding therapy isnt.
Keyword Understanding is an auditory processing and receptive language app. It has multiple levels.
Several speech therapists and SLPs use this app to help students with language delays and an autism spectrum disorder.
Top Pick For Dysphagia Therapy
4. Dysphagia Therapy If you want to feel confident in evaluating and managing a patients dysphagia, the Dysphagia Therapy app is a must. It features a Therapy Finder, so you can select the impairments you observe through your clinical swallow exam or instrumentals. It then generates a list of evidence-based exercises and compensatory strategies. Each exercise includes step-by-step instructions and a list of references. It also offers diagrams and visuals that you can incorporate into your therapy session for client and caregiver training.
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Why I Love These Apps
- Good value: for a few dollars, you get access to multiple apps in the bundle
- Easy to use: I loathe apps that require tedious set-up. As soon as you click into these apps, theyre ready to go.
- Re-usable: I use these apps weekly, and clients dont seem to get tired of them!
- Simple & Effective: The apps focus on what you need no fluff!
- Intuitive: My youngest clients figure out these apps quickly without much assistance
- Flexibility: The apps are useful for a variety of speech and language targets
- Engaging: I dont have to spend much time building interest or engagement, students love these apps right from the get-go
- Age range: Ive used these apps regularly with PreK students up to middle school age.
Word Vault / Word Vault Pro Cost: Free / $599 Per Month / $5499 Per Year
This app is designed for both children and adults. You can access audio and high-definition images for 8100 words, 1800 phrases & sentences, and 115 stories to address articulation and language skills. This includes real-world photos for over 3800 minimal pairs as well as almost 300 multi-syllabic words. There are over 120 categories for language building and over 25 social language categories. Interactive materials found with the Pro version are located in the Phonology, Language, and Social Vaults. You are able to create individual or group files to track the data of your clients.
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Speech Therapy Websites For Fluency Skills
Camp Say is a summer camp for young people who stutter, located in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. While I have not visited their location personally, I have a colleague who speaks very highly of this camp. Check out their website for more information.
This website has awesome free handouts and videos with practical tips for SLPs on how to improve your stuttering speech therapy sessions. The authors include several ASHA fellows and big names in the stuttering word. A must visit if youre wanting to increase your confidence with working with students who stutter.
I wrote a post on Tween Speech Therapy, about cluttering assessment, treatment, and carryover. In this article, I included links to a bunch of additional resources.
What Are Speech Therapy Exercises
Informal, personal interactions marked by focused speech language exercises are at the heart of speech-language therapy. Structured speech therapy exercises are techniques and tools that encourage a childs speech and language development. Theyre a necessary part of improving a childs speech, language, and communication skills and, when delivered as part of an engaging activity, are fun for young patients while still being a very effective part of therapy.
In fact, if you really want to connect with your pediatric clients, fun activities should be an essential part of every speech therapy session. Creativity should play a big role in your SLP practice. That means always having a new exercise or game in your SLP toolbox. Switching it up keeps your kids and you, too, quite frankly interested and engaged. Its a win-win. A positive speech therapy session means working toward clearly defined SLP goals and having a good time, too. What could be better than that?
Keep things fresh in your practice by implementing new pediatric speech therapy exercises and youll soon find youre having as much fun as they are.
Weve curated a list of our favorite games aimed at language, voice exercises, speech therapy and more that are sure to get your preschool and school-aged clients engaged, excited, and looking forward to their next SLP session!
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Sago Mini First Words
Designed with speech-language pathologists, Sago Mini First Words boosts your child’s communication skills through fun and engaging learning games. Saga Mini First Words was designed to support your childs speech development. Since children learn to speak by mimicking others, First Words utilizes interactive videos as its core teaching method, strengthening articulation and comprehension.
The activities include copying the mouth movements of a child in a video, saying words out loud, dragging and dropping items into place and more. The second section is divided into levels and takes kids through speech-based tasks of growing complexity.
Price: Free with in-app purchases
When Do We Use Speech Therapy Apps
There are numerous apps that can be used during speech therapy sessions and at home to encourage the growth of speech, language, and communication skills. Developing these skills involves active interaction between the iPad user and speech-language pathologist or caregiver. Instead of the individual loading the app and using it on their own, the SLP or caregiver can talk to them and use the app together. Often, the individuals we work with have more than one goal , so we love to use apps to cover all areas. See how we incorporate describing and commenting skills while also working on speech sounds!
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Advanced Naming Therapy The Next Level Speech Therapy App For Aphasia
Thousands of adults are dealing with aphasia following a cerebral stroke. Advanced Naming Therapy is the next-gen of the Naming Therapy app.
It has four engaging activities. It improves ones expressive language skills through thought organization, mental flexibility, and attention to detail.
It is perfect for individuals and their caregivers. It allows users to create sentences the app also generates words, describes preset photos, and compares over 200 pairs of listed items using verbal reasoning.
It is available on Google Playstore for all Android users.
Best For Elementary: Speech Tutor
Apple
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Not all features are available for initial price
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Could be frustrating to use if you arent a speech pathologist
Speech Tutor from Synapse Apps uses 2-D animated movies that allow you to see a side view and front view inside the head. These views allow you to see each sound production without the tongue getting in the way. In other words, you can actually see inside the mouth to watch sounds being made. This helps you understand exactly how to place your tongue or move your throat to make a specific soundsomething you cant do on your own.
With lots of animations available, this comprehensive app gives will prompt you to select a sound, watch how it is made, and then practice making the sound. It also comes with tips from licensed speech and language pathologists .
Additionally, you can play the movies at three speeds: slow, medium, and fast. Plus, as you practice target sounds, the app will record you, then play it before and after a correctly modeled production.
Speech Tutor app costs $24.99, and it is available for iOS. It does require iOS 12.0 or later. If youre looking for something more advanced or youre a speech therapist, consider upgrading to the Speech Tutor Pro. This extensive app costs $59.99, but you also get two screens, an SLP-friendly screen, and a parent-friendly screen.
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