If your child has speech disabilities, the most critical factor that your speech-language pathologist (SLP) will talk to you about is practice. Whether they are working on with understanding language nuances, stuttering and articulation, or pronunciation, the key to building confidence is giving your kid lots of low-pressure opportunities to practice their newest skills in everyday situations.
Conversing with friends and family, singing, reading, and reciting poems are effective among the many effective and natural techniques that children enjoy. Children learn best when they repeat content and keep up with speech practice sessions under an expert professional’s guidance.
As a supportive tool, online apps ensure that your child can continue online speech therapy lessons from the safe and comforting environment of their home. Check out some of the best tools available today.
Articulation Station from Little Bee Speech
Articulation Station is one of the most popular apps for kids with speech disabilities. The basic version is free and available for download on your iPad or iPhone. But, if you think your child really seems to engage with the offerings, you could invest in the Articulation Station Pro.
The program has six different kinds of activities. These include matching games that link sounds and objects as well as colorful flashcards. The exciting thing about this app is that it allows you to create customized flashcards, so you child can get excited about practicing with favorite animals, objects, and toys.
Talking Pierre the Parrot from Outfit7 Limited
Listening to the sound of their own voices provides feedback to kids as they practice difficult areas of speech. They gain insight on their own expression of words and pronunciation as their speech skills improve. Talking Pierre the Parrot is a free online app that repeats your child’s words in a funny voice—a surefire way to make many little ones giggle. The graphics are delightful for a child and motivates them to speak and repeat. There’s a lot of slapstick humor here, designed to keep a child’s attention. Pierre is just fine after getting squished with mock guitars or soaked in water. The app is compatible with your Apple products.
Fluency Tracker from Smarty Ears
The Fluency Tracker app has been specifically designed to help kids with stuttering. Stammering can make your child feel self-conscious and nervous in social situations. They may shy away from speaking. Practicing with this app helps kids develop positivity toward speech by identifying the situations when stuttering is more pronounced. For instance, in specific situations, when doing certain activities or interacting with particular people. Parents can enter data into the app for an anxiety analysis to help therapists devise the ideal speech programs and exercises for the child. Fluency Trackers costs $9.99 for use on the iPhone.
Speech Tutor
The Speech Tutor apps take speech therapy to the next level by providing images and simulations of the mouth, tongue, and throat. This one can appeal to older children who want to know how and why their body works. Children can watch the movement to develop an understanding of how sounds are produced. The app has a total of 132 animations showing the front and sideways section of the mouth.
Kids can watch and try to imitate the movements to figure out how to make the sounds and speak clearly. Speech Tutor is also available for your iPad or iPhone for a cost of $9.99. Parents can get the app to work with their kids at home. Many speech-language experts may also use the app when providing sessions in a professional capacity.
Let’s Be Social
This one’s for the grownups. The Let’s Be Social app has been designed to help adults help their children with common communication challenges of the autistic spectrum. The app provides a total of 40 lessons sectioned into five different skillsets that the child can develop. For instance, navigating their way through peer groups, coping with changing life situations, bonding with friends and family, interacting with other people, and understanding school behavior expectations. Let’s Be Social has an intuitive interface and helps caregivers identify the child’s reactions. You can purchase the app for your iPad for a cost of $9.99.
TallyTots
TallyTots is ideal for kids who are learning to pick up basic speech and language skills like stringing two or more words together to build sentences, understanding action words and verbs, and abstract concepts. The app is compatible with Apple products and you can expect to pay around $2.99 for the app that includes up to 20 mini-games and puzzles. These fun games are formulated to help kids learn numbers and counting up to 100. Songs are incorporated for kids to sing along, while images teach how to understand the concepts of quantity and sorting things according to size and shape.
With a bit of research, parents can find a wide selection of online apps to help their kids with their speech and language disabilities. Choose the app with features suitable for your child’s unique needs. Make learning fun by joining the games to turn it into a positive experience rather than a chore.