The 12 Best Apps for Speech Therapy

July 19, 2024

A young toddler uses apps for speech therapy for babies learning to talk

Looking for apps for speech therapy? Here are 12 of the best apps for speech therapy, including speech apps for adults, speech therapy apps for autism, speech therapy apps for stroke patients, and the best apps for babies learning to talk.

Whether you’re a speech-language pathologist (SLP) who works with kids, adults, or clients of a variety of ages, there is probably a speech therapy app that can help unlock your clients’ potential and amplify your impact beyond each session.

Apps for speech therapy can support people with aphasia, toddlers with early language development, and kids or adults with articulation disorders.

In fact, there are so many options available—the challenging part is identifying which apps to try!

Since technology is constantly evolving and new apps come out regularly, SLPs may feel overwhelmed keeping up with all the latest and best speech therapy apps.

In this article, I’ll share the best apps for speech therapy in some specific categories for adults, children, and babies with specific needs..

Speech-language pathologists carefully select therapy handout materials and design evidence-based sessions. The app recommendations you’ll find here are held to the same standard, ensuring every client you treat is able to make progress.

Speech apps for adults

Adults seek out speech therapy for a variety of reasons.

Whether treatment is focused on stuttering, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, or gender-affirming voice modification, apps for speech therapy give your clients additional opportunities to practice techniques that will help them to reach their communication goals.

Voice Tools

A vital tool for gender-affirming voice therapy, Voice Tools makes it possible to track and analyze pitch, tone, and volume.

The app also comes with exercises—including more than 1000 phonetically balanced sentences and reading prompts from children’s books. Adult speech therapy clients can use this app to promote carryover beyond each therapy session.

Stamurai

As one of the best apps for speech therapy supporting people who stutter, Stamurai makes it easy to practice fluency shaping and stuttering modification strategies on the go.

For SLPs who work with adult fluency clients, Stamurai is a perfect complement to speech therapy. The app’s evidence-based exercises make it possible to practice strategies introduced during therapy at home. Consequently, this can lead to more effective and efficient sessions.

Predictable

Literate adults with limited ability to speak—due to ALS, cancer, cerebral palsy, brain injury, autism, or any other condition—can benefit from this text-to-speech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems app.

Predictable includes a keyboard screen with smart word prediction and a library of phrases and categories that can be personalized. It also has many possibilities for voice selection: users can choose from voice banking providers (like ModelTalker and Acapela), online options, or device-specific voice options.

Speech therapy apps for autism

Autistic clients work on a wide range of goals with SLPs through the use of AAC systems, vocabulary, and social inference skills.

These apps for speech therapy and autism help to cover most of these needs.

Social Learning Platform from Everyday Speech

Everyday Speech is my go-to when it comes to targeting pragmatic language goals during sessions. For example, Everyday Speech has an incredibly large library of social-emotional learning videos along with accompanying games and worksheets for kids from preschool through high school. The Social Learning Platform is the app version of Everyday Speech, making it possible to access all of their content on an iPad.

Conversation Therapy

This app from Tactus Therapy supports clients with inferencing skills, narrative production, and reciprocal conversational exchanges. Perfect for targeting higher level language and pragmatics skills, Conversation Therapy is filled with thought-provoking prompts and accompanying images that spark dialogue. It’s a great choice for SLPs working with all kinds of clients, including those who are autistic.

Proloquo2Go

SLPs who support clients with AAC are likely familiar with Proloquo2Go, a popular app for iPhones and iPads that helps non-speaking people communicate using a library of 27,000 symbols. For autistic people who rely on AAC to express themselves, Proloquo2Go is one of the most essential apps for speech therapy.

Speech therapy apps for stroke patients

SLPs who work with clients post-stroke can promote carryover of speech and language targets by incorporating apps into therapy.

Here are some recommendations to help patients make progress faster:

Apraxia Therapy

For acquired apraxia of speech, one of the best apps for speech therapy is Apraxia Therapy.

A speech-language pathologist at Tactus Therapy developed the Apraxia Therapy app. The app combines video-modeling with a multi-sensory experience: hand-tapping, repetition in unison, recording, and listening back. It’s an ideal companion for clients who need home practice between sessions to accelerate progress on their speech goals.

Constant Therapy

Built by a team of neuroscientists and speech-language pathologists at Boston University, Constant Therapy helps clinicians create and customize home programming for clients living with aphasia and other neurological conditions. Evidence-based exercises target auditory comprehension and memory, reading comprehension, repetition, and word retrieval—among many other skills.

Language Therapy 4-in-1

Tactus Therapy designed this app for clients with aphasia. It centers on four key focus areas: Comprehension, Naming, Reading, and Writing. Language Therapy 4-in-1 ranks highly among apps for speech therapy, as it allows clinicians to develop strong, evidence-based home programming for patients with moderate to severe aphasia.

Best apps for babies learning to talk

You may want to integrate apps for speech therapy into sessions with babies, toddlers, and young children or share recommendations with families for home practice.

Babies and toddlers who are building articulation and language skills benefit from engaging, interactive, and repeated exposure to therapy targets. These apps can make achieving repeated exposure easier to accomplish.

Here are a few top picks:

Articulation Station Pro

This is the go-to articulation app for SLPs working with kids of all ages, including very young children. Articulation Station Pro was developed by speech-language pathologists and is designed to support speech production of English phonemes using six different activities.

The app includes a feature that supports voice recordings and includes a library of 1200+ image flashcards. The matching game appeals to young learners. Plus, this app makes it easy to work on speech and language at the same time.

Speech Blubs

Speech Blubs consistently ranks as one of the best apps for speech therapy. It has won numerous accolades for its suite of activities, which promote language development through video modeling and role play.

This app is designed for children as young as 12 months old. Additionally, children and toddlers with diagnoses like Down syndrome and autism spectrum disorder can use this app. It’s one of the most comprehensive apps for speech therapy that is specifically geared toward young children. Speech Blubs also maintains a strong network of SLPs who share their expertise within the app community.

Splingo

Another app that was developed by SLPs, Splingo appeals to therapists, families, and toddlers through a series of engaging, language-based activities. Games like “Splingo’s Language Universe” and “Early Words” support foundational expressive and receptive language development. Bright, colorful animations capture kids’ attention and promote vocabulary expansion at the same time.