20 Best Speech Therapy Apps for Preschool (Free and Paid)
Speech-language pathologists are often searching for the best free apps for speech therapy to use during sessions! SLPs are often looking for a dedicated speech therapy app to use when targeting a specific skill with a preschool or elementary student. There are a ton of apps available in the apple store that a school-based slp could use to target a variety of objectives. Though most recommendations will be for preschoolers, some apps may be appropriate for older children as well. If you are looking for the best apps with fun games or an effective speech app to help build communication skills, check out this comprehensive list!
How To Find Speech Therapy Apps
Looking for educational apps to use during your speech therapy session?
You can always take a look around by heading to the App Store and searching under the “Education” category. This list provides suggestions for apps that can be used for positive reinforcement, speech development, language, and phonological awareness.
Speech pathologists can also download or purchase apps on Google Play. To access Google Play, you can go into your “waffle” drop-down menu. That’s the best way to access all of the Google apps.
Why SLPs Might Use Apps in Speech Therapy
I will be honest, I am really pretty careful about screen time. This applies both for my own children and the children I see in speech therapy. Face-to-face interactions are so important!
There are situations, however, when speech therapy apps might be used to really engage and motivate students!
Another positive is that speech therapy apps are often very customizable. So, if an SLP needs to target something very specific, the settings in the app often allow for that.
Apps, when used purposefully and appropriately, can also allow SLPs to “switch things up” in speech therapy, and allow for easy data collection.
It might be helpful to be prepared with a visual or visual schedule when it is time to transition from the app to a different activity.
The 10 Best Apps for Speech Therapy Preschool FREE
Need a great app to try in therapy today? This list suggests the best speech therapy apps that are FREE (or offer a free trial) that a speech therapist might use during therapy sessions. Many of these apps do have paid versions, but checking out the free versions will allow a certified speech-language pathologist to see if an individual app might meet a specific child’s needs.
Motivators and Games
- Peekaboo Barn Lite: Check out this free app! Your student listens to sounds that are coming from inside the barn. Tap the barn to find out which animal is making that sound! This is a free version of the paid app, Peekaboo Barn. This app would be a great motivator!
- Baby Games: This is a free app that is designed for younger children. It includes 15 games, and a lot of those games have sorting activities. For example, in the Arctic game, children sort items by size while they help penguins build houses.
- Pepi Tree Lite: There are 3 different levels of play to this educational game, which feature animal friends that live in trees, such as owls and squirrels.
- The Toca Boca Apps are always a hit for simple motivators and teaching language skills. Check out Toca Kitchen Monsters! Your student can use a variety of ingredients to cook food for two monsters. Sometimes the monsters won’t like the food they’ve cooked- for example, if it’s been overseasoned. This would provide a great opportunity for targeting wh-questions.
Best Apps for Speech Therapy preschool free (Articulation and Language)
- My PlayHome Lite is a sample of the paid app, My PlayHome. Basically, this app is like playing with a virtual dollhouse. This app could be really great for language building activities, such as answering questions, describing, and labeling actions and objects.
- A speech language pathologist can try out Speech Blubs using a 7-day free trial. After that, there are monthly vs yearly subscription options. Speech Blubs is a voice-controlled speech therapy app that is perfect for young children.
- Word Vault is one of my favorite free speech therapy apps! This is a good app for targeting a variety of skills. If your student has a speech delay, there are word lists for articulation and phonology. Articulation targets are provided at the word, phrase, and sentence level, and there are also stories included. This is also a language therapy app, and targets adjectives, adverbs, analogies, categories, conjunctions, and more. If you choose to purchase the full version, you would be able to track data for multiple clients, add words, pictures, and audio to any list, and create custom lists, among other features. This app is great for targeting articulation and language goals.
- Looking for more articulation apps? Articulation Station, created by Little Bee Speech, is another option. This provides 20 target words for the included speech sounds, as well as an interactive game (a matching game). The paid version is Articulation Station Pro and offers greater access to speech sounds, as well as stories, flashcards, and stories.
- Phonemic Awareness Bubbles is a free app that helps children identify and manipulate phonemes.
- Who, What, and Where Lite is a great free app to target wh questions! This app was developed by a speech-language pathologist, so you know it’ll be appropriate to use during your therapy session.
The 10 Best Apps for Speech Therapy Preschool PAID
There are some really great PAID apps to use in speech therapy as well.
***Please note, that while I do list a few communication apps, it is really important to evaluate and see what system works best with a specific child. Therefore, I am listing two communication apps I am pretty familiar with, but please know this is not an extensive list, and there are many more options available!
Best Apps for Speech Therapy: Language
- Working with a student with an expressive and receptive language disorder? Splingo is a relatively inexpensive option (when I checked, the paid version was $1.99). This app was developed by a speech-language pathologist. It is intended to be a comprehensive app that focuses on many areas of language development, including following directions, pronouns, actions (verbs), early words development, past tense, categories, and describing.
- Syntax Workout App is a paid app that addresses a variety of grammatical concepts with an interactive bowling theme! Speech language therapists will love that it targets skills such as third person singular, subjective pronouns, objective pronouns, possessive pronouns, and more. Oh, and by the way. Don’t forget to check out this article about how I teach sentence structure in speech therapy.
- Are you targeting auditory processing of verbal directions? Check out Auditory Workout. You could use this app with children who have auditory processing disorders, receptive language disorders, or other related disorders. Okay, and I know this post is about preschool, but…you’ll be able to use this app with older students, too. This basketball-themed app is a great way to target following directions. I also love using this resource to target following complex directions.
- Check out the Pogg interactive app! This is a great app for children working on labeling actions (verbs). It is easy to pair with a communication device or communication board.
- Virtual Speech Center created Prepositions Journey. I really love how this app lets you target so many basic spatial concept vocabulary words!
Communication Apps
- Lamp Words for Life is a communication app that is based on motor learning principles. Speech-language pathologists might also wish to take LAMP trainings.
- TD Snap is another communication app that speech therapists might wish to check out! The TD Snap Motor Plan is a new feature at the time I am writing this article. TD Snap also offers a symbol-supported “Core First” page.
Articulation and Apraxia Apps
- Do you need an apraxia therapy app? Speech-language pathologists might wish to check out SpeechStickers. This is a really fun interactive app for young children. It targets early consonant sounds and vowel sounds in CV and VC combinations. Also, speech therapists might wish to check out this blost post about how to do a childhood apraxia of speech evaluation.
- Speech Tutor app is definitely one to check out. The pro version contains articulation screeners, articulation decks, and articulation videos. The video clips are what make this app so unique! There are front, side, and palate views to really help your student understand how to position the articulators to produce a speech sound.
- Working with a phonology student? Check out The Phonological Processes App. Target a variety of phonological processes using single words or minimal pairs. Processes targeted include affrication, deaffrication, cluster reduction, final consonant deletion, and more!
Summary
In conclusion, this article provided, in my opinion, some of the best apps for speech therapy preschool (free and paid).
There are many apps available that can be used during speech therapy sessions, and there’s no way I could cover all of them in one blog post. If you are a speech-pathologist with more recommendations, feel free to add them in the comments!
Scroll up to see lists and click on links for any apps that interest you!
Related SLP Articles
Speech language pathologists may also wish to read the following speech therapy articles:
