Best Speech Therapy Apps

Articulation Station from Little Bee Speech is one of the most comprehensive articulation apps designed for children to learn how to pronounce and practice different sounds. The program allows users to practice 22 sounds in word, sentence, and story activities that target the initial, medial, and final positions. Most of the sounds have 60 target words.

Users can choose from these six different practice activities:

• Flashcards: Practice sounds with 1,200+ pictures
• Level 1 stories: Short and silly rhymes with picture prompts and comprehension questions
• Level 2 stories: Short and creative stories with comprehension questions.
• Matching game: Match like items while practicing the sounds
• Rotating sentences: Practice target sounds with rotating words in a fixed sentence
• Unique sentences: Practice each target word and sound in a new sentence

As a bonus, you can tailor the experience to your child’s needs by creating your own flashcards with custom images. Articulation Station is free, and it’s available on iOS. For a more comprehensive program, you can upgrade to Articulation Station Pro.

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's appropriate for a range of age and developmental levels, including early language learning to a much more complex level of combining several aspects of language at once.

In order to customize the app, Splingo breaks the content down further into four groups.

• Level 1: Uses one main word; appropriate for children 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 $1.99 but has add-ons you can purchase. It is available for iOS and Android.

Speech Tutor from Synapse Apps uses 2D 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 sound—something you can’t do on your own.

With lots of animations available, this comprehensive app 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-language pathologists (SLPs).

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 back the recording 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 you’re looking for something more advanced or you’re a speech therapist, consider upgrading to the Speech Tutor Pro. This app costs $69.99, but you also get two screens: an SLP-friendly screen and a parent-friendly screen.

The Conversation Therapy app from Tactus Therapy was designed to spark conversation between people, including small and large groups. The app is an excellent option for anyone who has difficulty expressing themselves clearly, including stroke survivors, people with autism, and anyone with speech or language impairment, Alzheimer’s, dementia, or traumatic brain injury. 

To use the app at home, start by choosing from one of the 11 categories of interest, such as health, current events, or hobbies. When the picture is displayed on the screen, you can touch any of the 10 buttons to see a question ranging from simple sentence starters to more complex questions that require advanced answers.

The app includes over 300 pictures with 10 questions for each photo, which means across the 11 categories you have over 3,000 question prompts to choose from. And it features 10 languages: English, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Zulu. Conversation Therapy costs $24.99, and it requires iOS 9.0 or later. The app is compatible with iOS and Android.

Naming Therapy from Tactus Therapy aims to tackle one of the most challenging tasks a stroke victim has to contend with: anomia, or being unable to recall names of people and words for everyday objects.

Naming Therapy uses four strategies to help practice recall skills:

• Describe: Learn how to describe an item to someone else by answering questions.
• Flashcards: Flip through 700+ pictures and practice naming what's shown. Touch the picture, and the name will be read aloud.
• Naming practice: Practice naming 400+ pictures on your own. If you don’t get it right away, use one of the cues to help you find the name.
• Naming test: Take a screening test to see how many pictures you can name.

If you’re ready to move from the standard program, Tactus Therapy also offers an Advanced Naming Therapy app, which is the sequel to the Naming Therapy app. This is an excellent option for people with more mild language problems. It’s also a great tool to use when you leave speech therapy. Like the original Naming Therapy app, Advanced Naming Therapy is $24.99 and is available for i0S and Android.

LAMP Words for Life from Prentke Romich Company is designed specifically for children with autism to be used with the Language Acquisition through Motor Planning (LAMP) therapeutic approach. LAMP Words for Life provides a consistent motor pattern for words and a systematic way to develop communication skills allowing for unlimited language growth opportunities.

There are three levels of vocabulary within the app that support language development from any skill level: introductory, which has 83 words; transition; and full vocabulary, which gives you access to over 3,000 words.

The symbols-based approach makes this app appropriate for beginning communicators, as well as older autistic children who have advanced language skills. Every picture symbol on the front page represents a verb, noun, adjective, and category.

LAMP Words for Life costs $299.99 and requires an iPad running iOS 14.0 or later. While the app is significantly more expensive than many other apps, the ratings among users are the highest in this category and you can expect to use LAMP Words for Life for several years.

The Proloquo2Go app from AssistiveWare uses augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to help people who are unable to speak develop communication and language skills. The app is appropriate for all levels and you can customize it for a range of visual and fine-motor skills. You can also adapt it to fit your vocabulary and accessibility needs, which makes Proloquo2Go an excellent choice for people with cerebral palsy, developmental disabilities, or ALS, or who have had a traumatic brain injury or stroke.

Users can select a recorded voice that speaks for them when using the symbols. Both children and adults can choose from 100 natural-sounding text-to-speech voices. For people who can learn to speak again, Proloquo2Go allows them to continue communicating as they work through speech therapy or rehab to build skills. 

Proloquo2Go costs $249.99, and it’s available for iOS devices including Apple Watch.

Apraxia Therapy from Tactus Therapy is a comprehensive app designed to help people with apraxia, a speech disorder, develop their ability to say what they want correctly and consistently.

The app uses VAST, or video-assisted speech therapy, to help users repeat what they hear and see by watching a model’s mouth movements on video. As you listen, 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.

The Apraxia Therapy app allows you to work at three different speeds, so you can tailor the program for your needs. It also features conversational phrases that you might use on a daily basis. Additionally, the app records your voice as you speak along with the video. You can then go back and listen to the recording to see how you are progressing.

Apraxia Therapy costs $24.99, and it’s available on iOS and Android.

The DAF Pro app from Speech Tools helps users who struggle with stuttering or stammering slow their speech down to make it clearer for others to understand. While originally designed for stuttering and stammering, DAF Pro is also recommended for people who have a neurological disease such as Parkinson’s. DAF, which stands for Delayed Auditory Feedback, is a speech and language therapy tool that was created to help people who speak at a fast rate to speak more slowly.

DAF technology allows you to hear your speech in an altered manner. First, you record your voice. Then, while DAF Pro runs in the background, you get to listen to your speech in an altered manner, which causes a disruption to the normal auditory feedback loop, prompting you to slow your speech down. DAF Pro requires the use of headphones while using the app.

DAF Pro costs $4.99 and is compatible with iOS. It is also available on Google Play for $4.99.