Thank Goodness for Smarty Ears Apps =)

Smarty Ears is a wonderful company that makes some extraordinary apps. I have many of them and today I am writing reviews on Articulate It, Apraxia Ville, Social Quest and Expressive. I had the opportunity to use these apps prior to my school dismissing for the year. I always like my reviews to include a lot of pictures SO that is what I have included. When I purchase an app, I always feel it is hard to tell what it really does based on the 4-5 pictures that are on the Itunes site. So I try to do my reviews in pictures so you have more of an idea of what the app does visually. That is how I prefer to screen apps so a long time ago I decided that that is how I was going to portray my reviews.

First up is Apraxia Ville. This is a really cool app that you can customize so it fits your caseload's needs! I LOVE that about an app =)

Here is the opening screen =) As you can see there is 1) Quick Play: that allows you to just start program. I love this option for those times that preschoolers just show up on a day they aren't supposed to have therapy and the parent says "O I'm sorry I thought it was today-can we just do it because we're already here". 2) Select a player: thats to choose players to play the full version of the app 3) Reports and Homework: this option is nice for progress reporting at the end of the 9 weeks 4) Support: if you need help in any way using the app go to this section and you can see the ways to get a hold of Smarty Ears =) Great people by the way

So when you go to choose players this is what the screen will look like! Most of the Smarty Ears apps can input the information from Therapy Report Center app. 

Then you can choose which activity you would like to do.

Sound Windows is up first. This is where a student can practice and get more cues for early practice.

You can change the sounds in each of the windows if desired.

 And you can even change the avatar to a picture of you as another added visual cue. My students liked this.

Next up is the 2nd activity: The Farm House. So as you can see the players go in the "windows on the roof" and there are a red, yellow and green button so you can track progress. If you press the picture in the barn door-the app will verbalize the word for the child. The pictures in the "windows on the side of the barn" are verbal cues. You can change those cues by pressing on each avatar and changing the sounds. 

see below-I changed the cues in the windows to match the word being attempted by the student. 

  

You can even choose which words you would like to include in your sessions =)

The 3rd activity is "The Words Farm". This is where a student can practice a set of words. You can choose between 2 or 3 words per screen. As always you have the option to record.

You can customize this section by phoneme or syllable structure

 You can do this on both sides of the app screen =)

Overall I thought the app was very customizable which is VERY important for working with students who have apraxia. This would be a beneficial app for your speech rooms. 

Next up is Articulate It!

This app is a wonderful addition to my speech apps collection. My young children enjoyed this because of the graphics. My older kids felt like the app had some "young graphics" and did not enjoy it as much-but hey you can't please everyone! 

Here is the opening screen: 

These are some of the report options:

 And setting options.....

To play you can select a player. Here is how you choose the players as shown on this 2 screenshots:

Then you come to this screen. I choose phonemes first.

There are many phonemes to choose from. Make you selections and press done.

Then you choose which position of words you would like your student to target.

You may choose to use certain words or take away certain words.

Then the flashcards pop up =)

Of course, you have the option to score accuracies as seen on the bottom by pressing the check mark or the X.

You can make notes using the notes section of the app.

You can rotate the picture by pressing the rotate button. This was handy when you have students sitting at a table and it enables you to still have control of the buttons, but allows the student to see the picture without moving their head so much.

You have the option to record using the record option.

These are the adjustable settings you can choose to customize your session.

It confirms if you want to end the session or not- this is wonderful for button pressing young-ins =)

At the end it gives you a wonderful screen of accuracies.

Next option is Phonological Processes portion of the app:

Next option is Manner of Articulation portion of the app:

Last option is Number of Syllables portion of the app:

Overall I really liked this app for my elementary students. There are so many ways to use this app as you can see. No matter what type of phonological or articulation disorder a student has this app can tackle it! 

Next app up is Social Quest! This is a wonderful app that targets various social situations and allows students to work on inferencing and problem solving! Here is the settings options on the opening screen.

To play go to "select students' area and customize:

Then you get to choose which social situation areas you would like your students to target:

As you can see you move the head to the various areas-then you press that button by the red arrow to the side to blast off!

There are cute scenes as the app program begins:

This is what one of the question areas will look like. I set it up to where my students were required to press 2 answers to get the answer correct.

 You can go to the report card section and choose between the Hall of Rewards or Report Card section as seen in pictures below.

 This is the screen you will see in the Help section:

Overall this app is an awesome question and answer app that targets different social situations. The variety and functional questions are wonderful!

To finish up the Smarty Ears App review is Expressive! This is an AWESOME AWESOME app for AAC. I like how fully customizable it is and the cost effective price. 

This is the opening screen when you open the app.

 Here is the board of categories:

The student can use the boards and symbols to communicate with the sentence strip on the top of the screen:

Here is my sentence =)

It's nice that you can add a folder or image-this allows you to make the app completely customizable for the student that i using the app. You can add buttons to any section. You can take your own pictures and add them to any area as well.

You can remove any desired buttons as well.

You can utilize any of these options by pressing the info button.

You can utilize any of these settings by pressing the settings button:

Overall, this is one of the best AAC apps I have come across to utilize with my students. I highly suggest that for those parents getting Ipads for their children with disabilities to consider this AAC app. It is one of the easiest I have used yet!

Thank you for reading my reviews of this wonderful apps! I hope you all hop on over to Itunes or wherever people go for Android apps to purchase these apps! I LOVE them!