Designed by Speech-Language Pathologists, Nichole Hanneken Ontis and Danielle Sears, Language Adventures is a theme-based game board that incorporates standard game play settings such as dice rolling, token moving, and player selection. This exciting app helps children develop vocabulary, naming, and description in the context of a real-world setting such as the classroom, cafeteria, and playground. With its exciting interface and colorful graphics, this visually appealing app can be used by multiple players with different skill levels and target goals.

“I have personally used Language Adventures with students in 6^th through 12^th grade. The students are very excited to use the app and frequently ask to play it!” said co-author, Nichole Hanneken Ontis, “The app set-up makes it easy enough for students to learn while playing independently in a small group, yet allows endless opportunities for the therapist or teacher to build on the context-based questions to increase learning opportunities for increasing language skills. The data tracking within the app has allowed me to track their increased progress over sessions and has made it easier as a therapist to collect data and be involved in the app use. Having the 3 level game boards and hundreds of target words has made this app a great therapy tool that can be used over many sessions without the students getting bored with it.”

Fun and Functional and Go-Together were both authored by SLP, Rosie Simms and were created to improve language comprehension and expression in children. Fun and Functional helps children to identify and describe how real-world objects function, thus strengthening their language and life skills while Go-Together targets categories of items and helps children to identify objects with a semantic association. These customizable apps effectively measures receptive activity and can be used by individuals in all age groups.

The fourth app recently released by Smarty Ears, Categories Learning Center helps students build their memory, word retrieval, and vocabulary skills which are vital for them to effectively listen, speak, read, and write. Authored by Barbara and Mary Huston, Categories Learning Center increases receptive and expressive vocabulary through picture stimuli and aids individuals with category naming and category selections.

“Through sorting items into categories and subcategories – for example, not just animals, but also ‘animals that live on a farm,’ children can develop key word networks that help them learn and retrieve vocabulary words,” stated Sean Sweeney, Production Development Manager for Smarty Ears. “Categories are everywhere in our world, and though students with language difficulties struggle with verbal organization, this app provides an engaging way to work on these skills…”

All four apps, which are currently available in the iTunes apps store, can be used with an iPad, running on IOS 4.0 higher. Fun and Functional and Go-Together are also compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch. The prices of these easy-to-use apps range from $9.99 to $19.99.

For more information about Fun and Functional, Categories Learning Center, Go-Together, Learning Adventures and other Smarty Ears products, visit smartyearsapps.com or contact Smarty Ears at contact@smartyapps.com.

###

By: Cindy L. Meester MS,CCC/SLP

I use this app in the receptive only setting as a way to measure a child’s ability to identify objects and their functions. The app allows me to set how many items are shown on the screen, which makes it easy to set up for the different ability levels of my students. I can even adjust how similar the items are related in this level. The student completes the task and I have the data saved and emailed to me. I love that I can modify the receptive level and adjust at the student’s skills improve.

In the expressive setting I am able to see how well my students can explain functions. I use this setting to measure their expressive language skills, grammar, fluency and even carryover for articulation skills. I am able to mark their responses in 3 different modes: Missed it, Almost and Got it! and email the results to myself. I have even had some of my students rate themselves.

In the alternating receptive-expressive setting I have the best of both options! I can see how well they “get it” receptively and move directly to how well they can “explain it” expressively. If I have a student who couldn’t identify the function on the receptive screen I may choose to skip the expressive screen by touching the next button.  Once again the data is saved and I can email the results.

Options: Here are some other ways I have used this app

• Guess What Game- I turn the sound off on the iPad. We use the Expressive Level setting. The group decides on a category and in settings I turn off the other categories. Some groups have asked for a challenge and then we use all the categories. Each student takes the iPad and gives two clues for the picture on the screen before asking for guesses. The goal is to get the others to guess the item. If the item is guessed with only 2 clues they mark it Got it! If it takes 3-4 clues then they mark Almost and if it is not guessed it is marked as Missed it.

• Cold, Warm, Hot- In this game we use the Receptive Level setting.  The goal is to be able to explain how the items on the screen are related. The setting option allows you to see 2, 3 or 4 items per screen. The more items shown the harder it is to explain similarities.
  • To play an easier game we choose this in settings: Receptive more similar and two items per screen.
  • To play the most challenging we choose this in settings: Receptive less similar and four items per screen.
  • Each student takes a turn and tells how the items on the screen are similar. As a group we judge if their ideas were cold, warm or hot.
    • Cold: their explanation was not related or they could not think of a similarity
    • Warm: their explanation was close but maybe a stretch
    • Hot: their explanation was right on target

Recognizing the contributions of speech pathologists around the world and raising awareness for speech and communication disorders.

Smarty Ears is offering 6 of our 40 apps with a 50% discount until May 9th. We know how important it is for you to provide high quality  apps for your children and we want to make sure everyone can experience the magic of Smarty Ears apps. Share these great offers with your colleagues, parents and teachers. Thank you so much for using our products, sharing with others and participating in this technology revolution for children with speech, language and communication delays.

The sales on these selected apps will NOT be extended past May 9th, so please make sure you purchase it prior to May 9th to take advantage of these great prices.

Our Partners:

Developing students’ semantic abilities is one of my favorite parts of my job! I think words, and the connections between them, are just really fun! Building semantic networks provides students with a stronger vocabulary base, which in turn gives them points of reference as they learn new words. Enter Go-Togethers, an app I helped design along with Rosie Simms for Smarty Ears Apps. Go-Togethers targets identification of word associations as well as expressive naming. When designing the interface for this app, we wanted to utilize more innovative responses in terms of gestures that take advantage of the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone’s touch screen. For this reason (although a simple tap will also work for students with fine motor difficulties), receptive connections are made by a tap-and-drag, essentially creating a semantic word map for each target.

Each screen allows you time to discuss the associations with students (targeting rationales such as “Yes, a cow goes with milk because milk comes from a cow!”)

Likewise, the expressive level allows you (or the student) to tap-and-tally both associated items (e.g. “a cake!” and, optionally, rationales “because eggs are needed to make a cake!”) for an open-ended language intervention experience.

Consider Go-Togethers as one “go-to” intervention for your students with word retrieval difficulties (especially for its data-keeping functionality) and for those students who don’t do so well on the CELF-4 Word Classes or Word Associations subtests. With 200 target items in 20 categories across two levels of difficulty, the app offers SLPs and other educators (and parents!) a LOT of content to work with. For a full video demonstration, see below!

We will be giving away one app per day for the whole month of April. In order to participate you must sign up on our website or on our Facebook page. Winners will be announced on our Facebook page daily at 6 pm central time. Parents, Speech Pathologists, and special education teachers are welcomed to apply for a chance to win one of our 38 apps for iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Sing up for the giveaway here:

Email Marketing You Can Trust

You only need to enter once and you will have a chance to win everyday!

See below past winers:

4/17/2012 – Language Adventures – Naomi Hertsberg

4/18/2012 – Go-Togethers – Natalia De La Rosa, California.

4/19/2012 – Fun & functional - Patti Vogt, Missouri.

4/20/2012 – Articulate it! - Kari Lokken, Minnesota.

4/21/12 – Custom Boards - Jessica Ashford, California.

4/22/12 – Custom Boards - Christine Carey, Wisconsin.

4/23/12 – Custom Boards - Tracey Fraser, Manitoba, Canada.

4/24/2012 – iPractice Verbs – Debbie Barron, Michigan.

4/25/2012 – Categories Learning Center - Jaclyn Molina, Texas.

4/26/2012 – iName it – Ann D’Agostino, Massachusetts.

4/27/12- Sunny Articulation Phonology Test- Kari Robinson, Indiana.

4/28/12- Profile of Phonological Awareness – Lisa Truitt, New Jersey.

4/29/12 – SLP Goal Bank – Pam Palmer, Virginia.

4/30/12 – Preposition Remix - Md. Sohel Ahmed - Bangladesh.

All the basics of game play- player selection, dice rolling, and token moving- have been transformed for the iPad platform. Additionally, the app allows you to select from three levels of difficulty appropriate for elementary through high school-aged students, with accompanying themes and vocabulary contexts, and save your students’ targets and progress over repeated plays. Vocabulary targets are related to the topics of each leveled game board (playground, cafeteria, and classroom), so that they are grounded in a stronger context to enhance students’ comprehension and use of more complex vocabulary.

Language Adventures is based on research regarding vocabulary development and use of context clues to increase overall language skills, reading comprehension, and academic success. Research has indicated that targeting vocabulary facilitates reading comprehension and oral language skills (Dole, Sloan, and Trathen, 1995). The questions within Language Adventures are presented within real-world themes providing multiple context clues to assist in learning vocabulary. Studies have shown that when provided with specific types of linguistic information such as examples or restatements, students are able to unlock meanings of unfamiliar words within text (Baumann, Edwards, et al., 2003). By providing context-based questions and a thematic approach, Language Adventures assists children in strengthening word connections and developing meaningful concepts (Hickman, et al. 2004). Within the content of Language Adventures, the child is provided with meaningful learning activities related to their own experiences and encouraged to use student-friendly definitions, which are proven to enhance language comprehension and production (Beck, et al., 2002). Many researchers have supported teaching antonyms (Powell, 1986), synonyms (Graves et al., 2004), and multiple meanings (Nagy and Scott, 2000) to increase overall vocabulary usage. Particularly in game levels two and three, Language Adventures focuses on “Tier 2” vocabulary words that are frequently found in the repertoire of mature language users; instruction in these types of words can have a strong impact on language functioning (Beck, et al., 2002).

Language Adventures can be used to:
-Work in an adult-student pair or group of students on flexible word use, targeting synonyms, antonyms and multiple meanings.
-Develop vocabulary, naming, and description in the context of real-world settings.
-Elicit and score students’ understanding and use of complex vocabulary.
-Measure treatment effectiveness and skill growth over time through reported data.

Language Adventures has the following features:
-Theme-based game board format to be used with up to 4 players.
-Three available levels targeting elementary through high school students.
-Receptive Activity in which students identify vocabulary words and meanings.
-Expressive Activity in which students generate vocabulary words and meanings.
-Ability to select specific targets- synonyms, antonyms, and multiple meanings- for each player.
-Questions and answers presented in both auditory and visual modalities.
-Questions containing content words and context clues to increase understanding of targets.
-Tracking of results for each student as each game progresses; stored in shareable “Report Card.”

Authors: Language Adventures was authored by Nichole Hanneken Ontis, M.S., CCC-SLP and Danielle Sears, M.S., CCC-SLP.

App Designers: Sean J. Sweeney & Barbara Fernandes.

Video Preview:

Go-Togethers is based on research around vocabulary and word meaning development in students. Studies have found that semantic knowledge and naming performance are strongly linked, and that increasing the strength of semantic representations will aid in word retrieval (McGregor, Newman, Reilly & Capone, 2002). Go-Togethers targets semantic representations by having students identify items that “go with” category items in a wide variety of linguistic categories (such as vehicles, school subjects, and seasons). In this way, Go-Togethers aligns with research indicating that improving vocabulary, describing ability and associations between words assists students in language comprehension and reading skills (Bromley, 2007). Therapists, teachers and parents may choose to target items within specific categories, an option within the application that is consistent with studies indicating that categorization improves word storage and retrieval (Miller & Eilam, 2008).

Students with language disorders and autism spectrum disorder often have identified deficits in word knowledge, an area that is targeted by Go-Togethers (ASHA, 2006). Many researchers have supported the use of visual “word maps” to improve associations and retrieval (Westby, 2005, Wallach & Miller, 1988), a technique that is incorporated in the “Receptive” activities within this application. The “Expressive” activities in the app encourage and reinforce rapid retrieval of associated items, an intervention that has been shown to foster significant gains in word retrieval accuracy and vocabulary (Wolf & Seagal, 1999).

Go-Togethers can be used to:

-Help children identify items that share a semantic association.
-Target categories of items, such as rooms in a house, weather and seasons, and buildings.
-Elicit and score students’ naming and description of semantic associations.
-Measure treatment effectiveness and skill growth over time through reported data.

Go-Togethers has the following Features:

-Receptive Activity in which students identify items that are associated with a target word (presented visually and with audio).
-Ability to customize Receptive Activity according to number of possible correct answers presented (1, 2, or 3) to modify level of difficulty.
-Choice of application responses when child selects incorrect item (subtle indication of incorrect response, incorrect item disappears from screen, or “Try Again!” message).
-Selection of specific or all categories to target.
-Expressive Activity in which students verbally generate associated items and association rationales so that SLPs, parents or others can tally the number of times the student “said what” (an item associated with the target) and “said why” (a description of how the item and target are associated).
-Quick Play and Receptive-Expressive combination activities.
-Report presented at conclusion of activity; can be emailed to parent or self for record-keeping.

Video Tutorial:

For more information about Smarty Ears or iName it, please visit smartyearsapps.com or email us at contact@smartyearsapps.com. ]]> http://smartyearsapps.com/2012/03/26/ground-breaking-app-individuals-word-finding-difficulties/feed/ 0 http://smartyearsapps.com/2012/03/12/iname/ http://smartyearsapps.com/2012/03/12/iname/#comments Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:21:57 +0000 Smarty Ears http://smartyearsapps.com/?p=4073

iName it consists of one hundred word finding items that are typically found in the home and community. Each target word can be elicited by using one or more of the five different types of cues available.

Designed by and for Speech-Language Pathologists, this app assists individuals with word finding difficulty secondary to Aphasia and /or Apraxia. This app provides users a simple, yet systematic way to retrieve target words depicted in realistic visual scenes and augmented by five types of evidence based cueing.

Objectives:
1. Improve word finding of common functional words found in the home and community.
2. Provide several types of cueing options to meet the needs of a wide range of clients at varying communication levels.

Evidence:
While the professional literature documents several types of effective cueing strategies for wording finding, it is it is difficult to anticipate with certainty which strategy\ies (or cueing techniques) will be most successful for any given individual. (Hillis, 1993 Nickels , 2002). Proponents of a functional approach argue that most clinicians “in the trenches” use a mixed or combined approach containing elements of both semantic strategies and phonemic cues.
In addition, the literature suggests that initial syllable cues and sentence completion cues seem to act as a trigger for motor commands for articulation and therefore may be of some benefit to individuals that have apraxia of speech as they work to retrieve motor patterns. (Love, 1977)

iName it can be used effectively by Speech-Language Pathologists and family members and individuals experiencing word finding difficulties. It is designed for people that have varying levels of word finding deficits.

Target Audience (s):
This Application is designed for adults, but can also be used with adolescents and children. I Name It targets individuals with word finding difficulties secondary to aphasia. Additionally, it can benefit individuals with apraxia that are assisted by visual and sentence completion cues.

About the Authors:

Elizabeth Begley M.A., CCC-SLP, runs the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Clinic at the College Station Medical Center, College Station, TX. She provides AAC consultative services for schools, home health agencies and residential facilities. She is the co-author of two iDevice apps, Small Talk Dysphagia and Small Talk Oral Motor.

Mary Pitti, M.S., CCC-SLP is the Clinic Program Director and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at Ithaca College. She teaches courses in Dysphagia and Voice Disorders. She is the co-author of two iDevice apps, Small Talk Dysphagia and Small Talk Oral Motor. Published materials with Pro.ed include: Problem Solving Picture Cards, Everyday Activities to Sequence and Critical Thinking for Activities of Daily Living.

App Designer: Barbara Fernandes, M.S; CCC-SLP

References:
Hillis, A.E. (1993). The role of models of language processing in rehabilitation of language impairments. Aphasiology, 7 5-26.

Love, R., & Webb, W. (1977, May). The efficacy of cueing techniques in Broca’s aphasia. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 42, 170-178.

Nickels L. (2002) Therapy for naming disorders: revisited, revising, and reviewing. Aphasialogy.2002; 16:935-980
Swathi, K., & Gina, B. (2009, September 18). Evaluating the effectiveness of semantic-based treatment deficits in aphasia: what works? Seminar in Speech Language, 29(1), 71-82.
Doi:10.1055/s-2008-1061626.

Wambaugh, J., & Ferguson, M. (2007). Application of semantic feature analysis
to retrieval of action names in aphasia. Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development, 44(3), 381-394. doi:10.1682/JRRD.2006.05.0038

Video Tutorial:

Reviews:

Articulate It! And Custom Boards are two of five finalists chosen to compete in the ‘Favorite Special-Needs App’ Category

San Francisco, CA (March 5, 2012)–We are pleased to announce that Smarty Ears’ apps, Articulate It! and Custom Boards have been selected as two of five finalists in the 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards for “Favorite Special-Needs App,” presented by About.com. The popular annual reader-driven awards program highlights the best products, services, and features in hundreds of categories that span across a majority of About.com’s channels from technology to hobbies.

 Smarty Ears was founded in 2009 by Speech and Language Pathologist, Barbara Fernandes. Smarty Ears is an innovative company that specializes in creating mobile educational apps and has quickly emerged as the leader in creating convenient, affordable, and easy-to-use apps that serve the needs of parents, speech therapists, teachers and, students with speech, language, and hearing disabilities. Smarty Ears currently provides users with over 32 mobile apps and 3 Android apps.

 “We greatly appreciate the positive responses that our products have been receiving and are humbled by the recognition About.com’s readers are giving Custom Boards and Articulate It!” said Fernandes.

Custom Boards and Articulate It! were created to help improve children’s speech and language skills. Custom Boards serves a visual support system that enables teachers, parents, and speech therapists to enhance learning for each child with special needs. The app also provides parents with an affordable way to aid their child at home, creating a link between the child’s learning environments and reinforcing the learning process. With the Smarty Symbols’ advanced and comprehensive library of over 11,000 symbols incorporated into the app, Custom Boards offers its users a pool of templates to create customized communication boards, schedules, and meaningful activities. Custom Boards was launched on October 6, 2001 and quickly became the #3 Bestselling Educational App on iTunes.

Articulate it! was created to help parents and speech therapists improve the speech of children with delays in speech. This universal app contains over 1 thousand pictures and includes all of the phonemes of the English language. Articulate it! is currently the only application on iTunes that enables speech therapists to work with a group of students simultaneously, which is a great need in school settings.

We encourage each of our users to show their support by voting for their favorite Smarty Ears’ app. To vote, visit the following link:  http://specialchildren.about.com/b/2012/02/22/vote-for-favorite-special-needs-app.htm.

Users can vote for Custom Boards or Articulate It! once per day until March 21. About.com will announce the winner on March 30.

For more information about Articulate It!, Custom Boards, or other Smarty Ears’ products or how to vote in the poll, contact us at contact@smartyearsapps.com.

Categories Learning Center can be used to:
•Help individuals sort items that belong to a certain category
•Increase receptive and expressive vocabulary through picture stimuli
•Measure treatment effectiveness and progress monitoring through reported data
•Help individuals name items belonging to various categories
•Increase reading comprehension through semantic knowledge gains
Categories Learning Center has the following features:

•Multi-player options – up to 4 players
•Multi-level Receptive (non-verbal) activity:
oLevel 1 – sorting dissimilar objects
oLevel 2 – sorting similar objects
oWhere does it go – placing an object in the correct category (of 3)
•Multi-level Expressive Activity
oCategory Naming – providing the correct category name for a group of objects without prompts
oCategory Selection – identifying which category name (of 4) a group of objects belongs
oInformally provide opportunities for naming additional items within a category
•Ability to customize receptive activities between 2 or 3 category choices
•Progress Monitoring for treatment effectiveness – a report is presented at the end of each session which may be emailed, printed, or stored for later use

Fun & Functional is an application developed by author and Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) Rosie Simms to improve language comprehension and expression in individuals of all age groups. The ability to identify and describe the function or use of real-world objects is a key language and life skill. Fun & Functional provides SLPs, parents and others with a tool to develop categorization and descriptive skills by interacting with pictures and audio.

Fun & Functional is based on research around vocabulary and word meaning development in students. Improving vocabulary, describing ability and associations between words assists students in language comprehension and reading skills (Bromley, 2007). In particular, students have more difficulty acquiring verb-based vocabulary (Loeb, Pye, Redmond & Richardson, 1996), a skill that is targeted by Fun & Functional. The application allows for a focus on identifying and describing words within essential categories such as vehicles and household items, consistent with research indicating that categorization improves word storage and retrieval (Miller & Eilam, 2008). The application is designed to provide visual supports shown to be helpful for students with autism spectrum disorder and also targets suggested goals for this population such as expansion of word knowledge and action words (ASHA, 2006). Fun & Functional is also applicable to the instructional goals of children with language learning disorders, whose difficulties with vocabulary acquisition and descriptive language put them at risk for difficulties with reading and writing (Chanly, 1994; Gray, 2003, 2006; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986).

Fun & Functional can be used to:
-Help children identify items that have a particular use or function.
-Develop understanding and auditory comprehension of Wh-Questions and verb forms.
-Target categories of items such as clothing, school items, and occupations.
-Elicit and score students’ verbal descriptions of items.
-Measure treatment effectiveness and skill growth over time through reported data.

Fun & Functional has the following Features:
-Receptive Activity in which students identify items that perform a certain use or function (presented visually and with audio).
-Ability to customize Receptive Activity according to number of choices presented (2, 3, or 4) to modify level of difficulty. Receptive Activity can also be customized according to level of similarity within “incorrect” items.
-Choice of application responses when child selects incorrect item (move to next question, incorrect item disappears from screen, or “Try Again!” message)
-Selection of specific or all categories to target.
-Expressive Activity in which students verbally describe the function of items (e.g. “What do you do with a broom?), so that SLPs, parents or others can score their response as “Missed it!” “Almost” or “Got it!” within the application.
-Quick Play and Receptive-Expressive combination activities.
-Report presented at conclusion of activity; can be emailed to parent or for record-keeping.

 Tutorial:

The Minimal Pairs Academy (MPA) is a state of the art evidence-based minimal pairs app for speech-language pathologists and parents of children with phonologic sound disorders. Use Minimal Pairs Academy to help your student or child develop listening and discrimination skills and have fun practicing producing target words at the word and phrase level. Minimal Pairs Academy uses linguistically based treatment procedures that have been reported in the literature to be effective when treating children with multiple sound disorders. (Saben & Ingham, 1991)

Children with several sound errors may not necessarily have problems producing their error sounds correctly; but they may have problems using the sounds contrastively as phonemes, which leads to the production of homophones. These “errors” are also known as phonological processes. Phonological processes are the patterns that children use to simplify adult speech.

The conventional minimal pair model of treatment is pairing a sound that is produced in error by a child with its corresponding substitute, which has been reported clinically effective (Barlow and Gierut, 2002).

Minimal Pairs Academy targets the 23 most common phonological processes on two activities: auditory discrimination & production.  “A minimal pair is a set of words that differ by a single phoneme, whereby that difference is enough to signal a change in meaning.” Gierut,2002.

An animated intro on MPA makes minimal pair activities come to life! MPA has over 900 words in 23 different pairs and a total of four different activities:

1. Auditory bombardment: Children are exposed to a variety of words with auditory and visual information about their meaning.

2. Auditory discrimination: Children must discriminate between sounds when selecting the target word.

3. Production:  Children are presented with the target image; speech therapists have the option to display the pair in case children have difficulty producing the target word.

4. Phrase completion: Children are presented with a phrase, which they must choose a target image to complete the phrase.

The data tracking capabilities of MPA are beyond anything ever seen on a speech therapy application. The results also offer four modes:

1. Overall data/session;

2. A graph of progress overtime/process

3. Overall student statistics such as time in therapy, age, processes worked on and mastered.

As children master the processes targeted, they receive a “mastered” stamp that can be use to track progress overtime. Results can be shared via e-mail or printed directly from the iPad (provided user has a air-printing ready printer.)

Yes, this application is by far the most complete minimal pairs application on the app store.

Video Tutorials:

Introduction Video to Minimal Pairs Academy:

The Activities on Minimal Pairs Academy iPad App by Smarty Ears:

The results:

Reviews:

References:

1. Gordon-Braman, M and Weiss, C. E. (2007). Clinical management of articulatory and phonologic disorders. Retrieved October 1, 2008, http://books.google.com/books?id=txBpIyIhx8c

2. Barlow & Gierut. (2002)Minimal Pair Approaches to Phonological Remediation. www.iub.edu/~sndlrng/papers/BarlowGierut%2002.pdf

3. Saben & Ingham (1991) The Effects of Minimal Pairs Treatment on the Speech. Sound Production of Two Children With Phonologic Disorders. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Description

Match2Say is the matching game for children with difficulties producing some sounds in the English language. While they play they say the words and improve their articulation skills at the same time. Children will learn their sounds while playing! Children and adults can practice on their own, with their parents or with speech therapists.

While Match2Say does not substitute the need for speech therapy services, it is a great tool that parents can use at home with their children to improve their articulation skills. Match2Say includes all phonemes in the English language as well as a set of decks with the different types of “R” sounds.  This app includes a total of 1500 images!! You will never have enough of it.

Features

1. Each deck of cards represents a specific sound;

2. Multiplayer option with pass and play;

3. Audio recording for all images;

4. Several difficulty levels;

5. Over 1500 images in the whole app;

6. Word & Phrase level;

7. Universal app: Fully compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad.

8. Fun!

9. Designed by Smarty Ears- always a plus over any other app on iTunes

by Tiffani Wallace

Call me a little partial, but I LOVE this app.  Dysphagia2Go has given me a new way to utilize my iPad in my dysphagia therapy.  I also can use it with the confidence that it is HIPAA compliant.  Yes, I am one of the authors, but this app was created out of the need to complete a quick and simple Clinical Dysphagia Evaluation.  This app was created to assist clinicians in assessing all areas for dysphagia and to complete a chart review that is as thorough as possible.

When you open the app, you will first begin by adding your patient information.  You can save patients or you can bring up previous patient information.  When adding a new patient, you will be prompted to input a Patient ID, Patient first name, Patient last name, Patient Date of Birth and Physician’s Name.  If you are not comfortable adding a patient name, you can assign each patient a number or simply use initials.

 One thing you will want to make sure to do is go under settings and add your therapist and institution information.  Turn the information on to add it to your reports.

Once you have added that patient, you can either view a saved report, or you can add a new evaluation.  To begin the evaluation, you will select the chart review tab.  The chart review will prompt you to input the reason for referral, physician order (yes or no), diagnosis, current method of nutrition, respiratory status, etc.  There is also a text box that you can input any other pertinent information from your chart review.  Don’t worry, new sections are being added to complete a more thorough chart review.

Once the chart review is completed, you can go assess the patient and begin to start the Oral Mech Exam.  This will prompt you to input information regarding all the oral and pharyngeal areas that we assess, including the tongue, teeth, lips, etc.

Upon completion of the Oral Mech Exam, you will be able to assess trials.  Either use the consistencies provided or skip the consistencies not used.   For each consistency, you will be able to assess oral control of the bolus, pharyngeal stage of the swallow and add any comments needed.

The final section is the Recommendations section.  You will be able to recommend compensatory strategies, exercises, MBSS, FEES, therapy, no therapy, or referrals.

Once the evaluation is complete, you can download the report and either print it wirelessly or email it to yourself and print it.  You also have the option to email it to yourself and cut and paste into your computer-generated report if your facility has a report that is required to be completed.

A few tips to remember with this app, first and foremost, please make sure to lock your iPad with a passcode.  This helps to ensure the privacy of the information that has been saved on your app and also helps to protect your valuable information that is stored on your iPad, should someone “borrow” it.  Also, please remember that this is a work in progress.  This app will continue to have new feature added.  One feature that will soon be added is the cranial nerve assessment section.   Please write a review of the app.  This is how we as the authors and Smarty Ears will know how to improve the app so that it can be useful for everyone.

We hope you enjoy Dysphagia2Go!!

Uses
The Profile of Phonological Awareness can be used to:
-Collect information regarding an individual’s phonological awareness skills.
-Help educators and clinicians choose areas of skill development to target, if required;
-Measure treatment effectiveness and skill growth over time;
Features
-Ability to enter students’ information and track their progress overtime;
-Tests most areas of phonological awareness development with separate information about consonant clusters;
-Offers ability to choose which sections to administer and ability to skip sections without compromising totals;
-Ability to see students’ skill levels at a glance with colour coded scores;
-Ability to see a group of students’ average skill levels at a glance with colour coded scores;
-E-mail and/or print test results immediately after its administration;
-Color changing counter included to help students visualize segmenting and provide support to students when attempting segmenting;
-Automatic analyses of the following skill areas:
1. Rhyming – Identification and production
2. Blending – Syllables and sounds in words (including consonant clusters)
3. Isolating – First, last, and middle sounds in words
4. Segmenting – Words, syllables, and sounds (including consonant clusters)
5. Deleting – Syllables and the first sound in words (including consonant clusters)
6. Substituting – First and last sound in words
-Compatible with iPad running iOS 4.0 or later;
-Add notes throughout the assessment, with prewritten common errors or answer patterns available for faster administration;

The Pro-PA aids in obtaining a complete picture of a student’s individual skills in phonological awareness by assessing and analyzing errors and providing information about the approximate skill attainment in each individual area. An understanding of the profile of skill attainment as well as specific types of errors made by a child, which can be outlined in the notes, will result in an intervention plan that can more appropriately and specifically target the child’s phonological awareness difficulties.

The Pro-PA was developed by Tanya Coyle, a Canadian speech-language pathologist, and published by Smarty Ears. It can be used with individuals of all age groups.

Adding or editing a student on the Profile of Phonological Awareness app for iPad

Administering Profile of Phonological Awareness

Understanding the results of the Profile of Phonological Awareness App for iPad

Sharing results obtained on Profile of Phonological Awareness app

 Here are some ideas on how to use the house of learning to help your child practice language skills:

Tips for teaching language skills

1. Tips for teaching prepositions

Many children have difficulty with using correct prepositions such as “on, in, above, on top of, under, next to, to the right, to the left”. The House of Learning is the ideal iPad app for helping children understand and practice these skills while playing.

1. Guided house builder: Instead of letting the child play the app independently, try playing next to them and telling them exactly where to put each object. Use complete phrases such as “ place the sheets on the bed”, “place the cup on the table”, “ place the shoes under/above the bed”.
2. Silly house builder: How about setting up the house before your session and putting the objects in “silly” places such as “the bed on top of the pillow”. When it is time for your session, you ask your student what’s wrong with the image and get them to guide you verbally to place the objects where they belong. You should expect them to say complete phrases using prepositions “the bed goes above the pillow”.

1. Following one or more step directions

Following one or multiple step directions can be very challenging for some children with language delays.

1. Guided house set up: Guide your child along the game with one, two, three or more step commands. Such as “Get the ball”, “Get the ball and place it on top of the bed”, “Get the ball, place it on the bed and move the girl close to it.”

1. Story Telling

It is possible to take a screenshot when you are done with the scenes. Why not use these screenshots to let your students build a story? Here is how we can do this:

1. Set up the scenes and place the people where you want them to go.
2. click on “done” to display the camera button.
3. Click on the camera button to take a photo of the scene.
4. Choose to save this scene to the library;
5. Go back to the scene and prepare the scene for the next screenshot;
6. Repeat the steps.

After you have completed the “story” you can print and share with your students or ask them to create their own.

1. Vocabulary

We attempted to provide a variety of objects throughout the scenes on “The house of learning” in order to give students exposure to a large number of vocabulary items. If your iPad is connected to the web as the child is playing, it will be possible for the child to listen to the word being pronounced as they touch on it to place on the scene. If it is not connected, we recommend that you be very specific as to which objects the child will be placing in the scene. Instead of allowing them to randomly place items on the scene, the adult will guide the child as to which items to choose next: for example: “place the chandelier in the scene.”

Newly re-designed WhQuestion! WhQuestions is now the app you have been waiting for. It is a well known fact that many children with a communication or language delay often will have difficulty answering simple Wh Questions such as “What is your name?” or “What is this?”. Children with autism even more frequently display difficulty with these skills involving basic communication.

Whquestions” is an application designed to help children with language delays and disorders practice answering questions in the following formats:

-WHO
-WHAT
-WHERE
-HOW
-WHY
-WHEN

This application was designed so that parents and speech therapists can have a more interesting and motivating tool to help children learn how to answer questions.
WhQuestions features 400 questions in a variety of formats.

This application was designed by a speech and language therapist to help your child succeed! Not only will you have a variety of questions at your fingertips, but also an interactive tool that allows your child to touch on the appropriate answer. After the presentation of 10 questions “WhQuestions” will show the percentage of accuracy, so you can keep track of your child’s progress.

WhQuestions features audio recordings for each question as well as the ability to track progress.

Video Tutorial:

I’m sure most SLPs have tried a variety of techniques to improve articulation sound errors. My iPad has not only helped to improve communication but it has opened up options on where I provide therapy.  I am now able to move out of my speech room and work in a classroom or even a hallway. What a hallway! Wasn’t that what we used to do in the “olden” days. Well maybe but now it is a very functional option for some of my articulation students.  Here’s how it works for me.

Scenario 1: I often have several students who are close to using sounds in carryover. I found that working twice a week for 20 minutes or so was not that effective especially as my caseload grew and grew.  I started with the first 30 minutes of the day and called this my Articulation Rounds.  This worked well as I moved from room to room and worked with each student for 5-10 minutes. I would take with a binder filled with word lists, pictures, reading passages plus my data sheets. But it did get cumbersome. Then I got an iTouch and my tired arms relaxed and when I showed up at a classroom and held up my iTouch the “coolness” effect take over.  The speech student came willingly and all the other kids wanted to join in too.  Now with my iPad I have a bigger screen and more kids that want to join in! I now have started using this model with some of my students who have multiple sound errors and poor overall speech intelligibility.  This gives them the opportunity to practice more often and I am finding they are able to focus better with these shorter bursts of service.  I love using Articulate it! in my Articulation Rounds. I can have all the materials necessary to meet my students’ needs. The school I work at even has benches in the hallway that I use. And BONUS it keeps track of the data too!

Scenario 2: I use Articulate it!  with students in my speech room too.  The app allows you to have more than one student practicing at a time. There is an option to choose to take a photograph of the student and a newly add option of an avatar.  My students were excited about this new choice and all have changed their image to avatars. Who wouldn’t like being a smiling face with blue hair! I use the app just like using traditional articulation cards.  I can have them practice at the word level or make up sentences for each picture.  The record option allows each student to work on self-correction.  And BONUS it keeps track of the data too!

Scenario 3: I use Articulate it! for my fluency students (stutterers).  I have them practice easy speech in words and sentences.  I use the record option so the students can help analyze their own speech or practice a technique and hear it in their own voice.  And BONUS it keeps track of the data too!

Scenario 4:  I have a student working on vocabulary or expanding their descriptive language skills.  Each student is assigned a phoneme and they take turns giving two clues and receive can push the green check mark if the other student(s) guess correctly. It’s about providing good clues and not trying to be tricky! And BONUS it keeps track of the data too!

In all these scenarios I can add a note to each student’s data. This allows me to note if we practiced in words or sentences or if they needed models etc.  I can then e-mail the data to myself or upload it to iTunes.

There have been some issues of the buttons disappearing. It has happened to me too. Thanks to Smarty Ears team they figured out the problem.  If you use the lock button on your iPad the control area buttons will disappear.  Here is a video link to fix: http://vimeo.com/34134714

An update is coming so stayed turned for the new exciting features!!!

There are many options to use the Custom Boards app within speech therapy sessions. Let me show you a few ways to get you started.

Activities & Games Templates:

I used the Christmas Tree template and imported pictures from my Photos that displayed different emotions. I printed one master copy. You could laminate this or put it in a protective plastic sleeve. I printed one extra and cut out the ornaments. The object is to pick an ornament, label the emotion and make guesses on what the gift might have been. For example: Excited (red): she received an iPad or Upset/Mad (orange): she received a pair of used boots. It can be a fun brainstorming activity and lead to a social skills lesson on what to say and what to keep in your thinking bubble.

I used the Board Game (Simple) template to create a quick open-ended game that could be use for different objectives. This one is called Blizzard. You can use a coin (heads=2, tails=1) or a die to move. If you land on the purple blizzard you lose one turn. If you land on snow day you take another turn. Now landing on the red dice is the open ended part of this game.

• For articulation students use articulation cards or the Articulate it! App and if they land on a die with 5 they say a word five times or five words or even use the words in a sentence. Play continues as long as time allows.
• For language students use the Label Set #3 template found in Signs & Labels and add vocabulary words or pictures to the circles or “snowballs” and they draw from the pile when landing on a red die. You might have them provide a definition, describe and have others guess; use the concept in a sentence, etc.  You may want them to just draw one “snowball” on their turn.

I used the Matching Cards template found in Activities & Games to created two syllable word cards. I cut them apart and laminated them. I made them color-coded to help with matching the two pieces.

1. The students can draw these in a matching game format.
2. I have also placed or taped one half of the word in the room and they try to find their match.
3. We placed these on the floor in a hopscotch form and they say each syllable while hopping on them. They like to collect as many pairs as they can.

These are only a few ways to use the many possible options available on the Custom Boards app. Be sure to explore the many templates available the possibilities are endless!

Sean is quite the expert in the industry. Sean holds a master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Boston University and an additional master’s degree in Instructional Technology from Framingham State College. He has served as a Private Practitioner for the past eight years at the Ely Center, located in Newton, MA, in which he provides treatment  to clients with social communication issues. Sean has 10+ years of experience as a school-based Speech-Language Pathologist and he has also worked in the public school district as an Instructional Technology Specialist.

In 2010, Sean created the blog, SpeechTechie.com, to share info with users on how to integrate technology into speech therapy and soon after, won the 2010 Best New Blog from Edublogs. He not only authors his own blog, but he also contributes to the popular industry blogs, ASHAsphere and the Mindwing Concepts Blog. Consequently, Sean has spent the past few years providing consultations and making presentations at conferences, area clinics, and the annual national ASHA convention. He has presented on topics concerning webtools, apps, and social media venues that SLPs can use to enhance their practice.

“I am hugely excited to join the Smarty Ears team! My experience in Instructional Technology in educational settings was primarily geared around helping teachers use (and in many cases work around) the features of available tech tools in order to meet their lesson objectives.  In my role with Smarty Ears, it will be wonderful to be able to actually design tools for SLPs that are customized to clinical needs!” Sean expresses, “As an SLP, I have always been a fan of products that provide a broad context and strategies that can be implemented outside treatment sessions.  I hope to apply that strategic and contextual focus toward developing apps that directly target language and literacy skills, while engaging students by taking advantage of the interactive potential of iDevices.”

Barbara Fernandes, Founder and CEO of Smarty Ears, “We are glad to have such a talented SLP join our team. We have watched all the great work he has done in promoting the integration of technology into therapy on his blog and we look forward to the great work he will do as the Smarty Ears App Development Manager.”

For more information, contact Smarty Ears at contact@smartyearsapps.com or visit www.smartyearsapps.com.

Is that silly is an app compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch & the iPad that helps children practice their expressive language skills. Is that silly contains over 120 pictures that encourages children to learn language and notice idiosyncrasies while having fun.

Children are exposed to images, and they have to decide whether or not an image is “silly”. Images come in pairs, one silly and one “not silly” image. The images are high quality, highly attractive drawings and feature funny, or situations that children with language delays must notice as “silly” or even ” dangerous”. This app gives adults a great tool to teach children to pay attention to details on the images and make decision about them.

The app has a receptive component and an expressive language practice component in which children must explain why specific images are considered ” silly”.

This is a great tool to aid adults, therapists, and teachers to help children with language delays such as autism to practice their pragmatic skills.

We encourage you to watch our video tutorial for more details on “Is that silly?”:

Barbara Fernandes, Smarty Ears’ CEO, is among a number of distinguished presenters who presented on Thursday on “Using Evidence-Based Articulation Therapy” and on Saturday on “All about the iPad for Speech Therapy”. Both auditoriums were full, with attendees sitting on the floor or standing in the back of the room. Fernandes was applauded throughout the presentation as she demonstrated the wonders of Smarty Ears apps to a full room of top notch Speech-Language pathologists.

It was clear from these three days that Smarty Ears is the most liked, respected, and recognized company in terms of apps for speech therapists. “It felt great to have people come by our booth and want to shake my hand just to say, ‘thank you for making my life easier,’” said Fernandes. Smarty Ears was the first company to integrate speech therapy into mobile applications. The company has grown significantly since their first appearance at the 2010 ASHA convention in which 12 apps were presented; within a year, Smarty Ears has swiftly become the leader in speech therapy mobile apps development with over 29 apps for iOS devices and 3 Android apps.

Smarty Ears released two brand new apps during the American Speech and Hearing Convention in San Diego: Custom Boards & Dysphagia2Go. Authored by Dyspahagia Specialists, Tiffani Wallace and John DuBois, Dyspahagia2Go is an easy-to-use app that administers swallowing assessments and assists clinical speech experts in properly evaluating patients with Dyspahagia; it is among the Top 25 Medical Apps featured in the iTunes app store.

Custom Boards is a popular and cost-efficient speech therapy app that serves as an activity creation center and visual support system, enabling speech-language pathologists, special education teachers, and parents of children who need symbols for communicating and learning to create and print meaningful activities, schedules, and communication boards. Custom Boards was recently released on October 6, 2011 and quickly became the third Bestselling Educational App on iTunes.

Smarty Ears was established in 2009 by ASHA-certified Speech Pathologist and CEO, Barbara Fernandes. She has organized many initiatives that have transformed the lives of many people. She states, “The smiles I see on the therapists when I show them our products: that’s what makes this all worth it. Reading the several emails with positive comments and reviews about our apps is rewarding; however, meeting users and showing them how the app works in person I get to experience nothing but gratitude and enthusiasm.”

It is without a doubt that, with Smarty Ears, speech therapists and teachers can provide individuals the best tools possible that will facilitate learning efficiently while fostering proper communication skills.

For more information about Smarty Ears, visit our website.

Device Requirements:
* Compatible with iPad
* Requires iOS 4.0 or later
* 10.8 MB – Dysphagia2Go
* 387 MB – Custom Boards

Pricing and Availability:
Dysphagia2Go 1.0 is $99.99 USD and Custom Boards 1.1 is $69.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store.

Dysphagia2Go guides you through the evaluation process with reminders to assess medications, cranial nerves and all the areas on which any good dysphagia evaluation should focus. This app provides a thorough evaluation report template developed by speech pathologists who have drawn upon their experience in varied settings to provide extensive opportunities to record chart reviews, assessment data, and recommendations in a single document, which can then be printed or e-mailed directly from the user’s iPad. 

Dysphagia2Go allows for easy, single touch evaluation results with an easy-to-print report. If you don’t find what you need on the app or have other comments that should be added, Dysphagia2Go offers comment boxes throughout to add your own evaluation information. 

Drop the pen and paper during your dysphagia app and use Dysphagia2Go for a quick and easy, complete Clinical Dysphagia Evaluation. 

While Dysphagia2Go provides an excellent resource for reporting data for swallowing assessments performed by a speech and language pathologist, it is NOT intended to replace an SLP’s clinical expertise or consultation. This app is not a replacement for clinical training and should not be used by individuals who are not experienced licensed speech and language pathologists. 
* Dysphagia2Go relies on security measures that are built-in on the iPad. 
** The app can only comply with HIPAA standards if user is protecting iPad data using iPad’s password protection. 
*** Smarty Ears, LLC is not responsible for maintaining the confidential information that users have entered in to, or sent from the Dysphagia2Go app. 
**** Smarty Ears, LLC does not recommend that the information entered in the application be e-mailed over a non-secure connection.

Video Tutorials:

Adding a new patient to Dysphagia2Go:

Adjusting settings on Dysphagia2Go

Administering Dysphagia2Go

Custom Boards was created to offer teachers, parents, and speech therapists the tools they need to support learning for each of their students while providing parents with an affordable way to facilitate continued learning at home, creating a link between learning environments and strengthening students’ process of learning.

Custom Boards serves as a visual support system that enables speech and language pathologists, teachers, and parents to create and print meaningful activities, schedules, and communication boards. This excellent app allows users to select from a pool of templates in three areas: Communication Boards, Schedules, and Activities. Custom Boards includes over 11,000 symbols from the Smarty Symbols library. The Smarty Symbols library is advanced and comprehensive with vocabulary that is organized into semantic and meaningful categories (such as communication and expressions) and features a unique low frequency vocabulary not found in any other symbol library. By utilizing Custom Boards, users can save, print directly from the iPad, and email countless templates.

Custom Boards has the flexibility of being used on the go, at school, in therapy sessions, and even at home. “I created individual boards using Custom Boards for many of my students today. Articulation pictures for some, requesting for others and vocabulary for all!” stated Cindy L. Meester, an educator who recently purchased Custom Boards, “I even made a game board to use with a theme unit for fall. And I can save them to use again and again! I can print them off for home practice too.”  The reviews on iTunes also show the level of excitement that Custom Boards is generating: “A Must Have App! Intense! Universal! Multi-Functional! Adaptive! Ingenious! is this App. It is well-suited to meet any Therapist, Teacher, Parent, and Child’s needs. This app has set a new bar for board creations,” review by beVerbal.

Older computer-based programs charge between $399 and $799 for their software; Custom Boards, available in the app store for only $69.99, is a product that educators, speech pathologists, and parents can afford and use in various learning environments. Custom Boards is cost-effective, user-friendly, insightful, and easy to use.

Custom Boards can be purchased from the iTunes app store. The product was officially launched on October 6, 2011 and quickly became the #3 Bestselling Educational App on iTunes.

For more information about Custom Boards and Smarty Symbols, visit us and watch the video tutorial before purchasing at www.smartyearsapps.com

Companies that hire speech pathologists spend numerous hours making direct phone calls and browsing through online resumes, hoping to find a therapist to fill the thousands of open positions across the country. The current shortage in the field of speech pathology has forced companies, school districts, and hospitals to spend a great amount of time, making enormous efforts to find a therapist that is available for the position. At the same time, employment in this field is expected to grow 19 percent, thus companies need a clever and innovative way to reach them. In the past, companies heavily relied on websites such as Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com to post their job openings. However, their ads have become lost in a sea of countless irrelevant or unrelated job openings from companies across the globe.

The iPad and Google Maps are remarkable technologies that have been made available to us. SLP Spots has decided to take advantage of this opportunity to make job matching for speech pathologists easier and hassle free. The map feature allows speech pathologists to view the location of the available positions on the Google Map directly on their iPad; this map even allows speech therapists to actually see how far each opening is from their own home. SLP Spots will have each available opportunity mapped out so SLPs can see which cities are displaying the jobs they are specifically looking for.

Barbara Fernandes, the CEO of Smarty Ears, informs us that with SLP Spots, “speech pathologists can utilize a search filtering feature that was built specifically for speech pathologists and include filters such as setting, population served, and certification level. This is an extremely useful feature not only for SLPs but also for companies.”

SLP Spots is currently available in the app store. It has been already downloaded by nearly two thousand speech pathologists, and the number is rapidly growing daily. While SLPs download the app for free to use, post resumes, and browse through job posts, companies pay an affordable price through an in-app purchase to place their ad on SLP Spots. The ad will become visible, immediately after purchase on the app store, to the over 20 million people who use an iPad and purchase apps through the iTunes store. There is no doubt that SLP Spots give companies the resources they need to conveniently and quickly find the right candidate for their position.

Companies can start posting their openings immediately by downloading SLP Spots and making an in-app purchase. Prices start at $29.99 for a 30-day ad placement. For more information about SLP Spots, visit http://www.slpspots.com or send an email to Smarty Ears at contact@smartyearsapp.com.

The BAPA was developed by Barbara Fernandes, Ellen Kester, Mary Bauman, and Scott Prath and published by Smarty Ears. The BAPA can be used with individuals of all age groups. The BAPA is compatible with the iPad running iOS 4.0 or above.

The BAPA aids in obtaining a complete picture of a child’s overall speech sound abilities by assessing and analyzing errors according to both articulation errors and phonological errors. A child may have difficulties with the movement of the speech mechanisms to produce a sound (articulation), with under-standing and applying the correct phonological rules or patterns for production (phonology), or a combi-nation of both. An understanding of the specific types of errors made by a child will result in an intervention plan that can more appropriately target the child’s underlying speech deficiency.

A near-native proficiency in both oral and written Spanish is needed to administer the BAPA. Knowledge of the (1) words and the (2) sounds of the language spoken by the child enables an examiner to cor-rectly identify which errors have been produced. When synonyms or dialectal variations are produced during testing (e.g., producing playera for camisa [shirt]), a high level of proficiency in Spanish will enable the examiner to direct the child to produce the target while still validating his or her response. This can also be particularly important for a child with highly unintelligible speech, who may produce the dialectal variation in error. Understanding that the intended word began with an initial /p/ (playera) will pre-vent the examiner from marking the initial sound as an error of fronting (i.e., /p/ replacing the /k/ for camisa) when /p/ was correct for the intended word.