Speech Therapy Apps - Free Download
Updated: Sep 24, 2022
What Aptus Speech Therapy apps are available for free download?
We currently have 4 speech therapy apps for free download: Inference Pics Lite, Empathy Pics Lite are free autism apps for iPad/iPhone. Comprehension Toolbox is a free aphasia app on iPhone/iPad. Keywords Understanding Lite is suitable for adults with aphasia and children with autism or delayed language.
Free Articulation Apps
Articulation Arcade has a free lite version that allows you to try out each of the articulation games and the flashcards activity for free.
Free Autism Apps
Inference Pics and Empathy Pics both have free lite versions that allow you to sample the full versions of the apps for free.
Inference Pics has over 300 inference pictures and seven activities. It is designed to help older children, teenagers and young adults with autism and/or social communication difficulties to make social inferences.
The free lite version, Inference Pics Lite gives a sample of the full paid version; two inference pictures per social inferencing activity.
Inference Pics is available for £14.99/$14.99 on the AppStore. Download the Lite version for FREE.
Watch Inference Pics in action:
Empathy Pics, as the name suggests targets empathy skills. It has over 100 real-life empathy photos/scenarios (with clear facial expressions, body language and clues from the context).
This empathy app is suitable for older children, teenagers and young adults with autism who need to improve their ability to understand the perspective of others.
The free lite version, Empathy Pics Lite gives a sample of the full version: 3 pictures per activity.
Empathy Pics is available for £14.99/$14.99 on the AppStore. Download the Lite version for FREE.
Keyword Understanding is a sentence-level comprehension app. It works on the ability to follow directions of increasing keyword length.
The free lite version, Keywords Understanding Lite gives a sample of the content that is available in the full version.
Keyword Understanding is available for £14.99/$14.99 on the AppStore. Download the Lite version for FREE.
Watch Keyword Understanding in action in this app demo video.
Free Aphasia Apps
Comprehension Toolbox is a free speech therapy app for aphasia with in-app purchases. It comes with 2 categories, allowing you to try each of the three aphasia treatment activities for free.
If you like Comprehension Toolbox and find it useful, you can download all the other word categories in a single in-app purchase.
Comprehension Toolbox is available for £14.99/$14.99 on the AppStore. Download the Lite version for FREE.
What other speech therapy apps are available for free download?
Free speech therapy apps with ads
If you do a quick search on the AppStore or the Google PlayStore, you’ll find lots of speech therapy apps for free download. Some of these free apps are in fact very good. However, it is important to note that it costs a lot of money to develop an app so free apps generally have a way of making revenue such as ads. Ads can be very disrupting especially during a speech therapy session with a child or adult with communication difficulties.
Free speech therapy apps funded by universities
Some free speech therapy apps have been made by universities. These can be helpful but it is possible that they could eventually disappear from the AppStore/Google PlayStore. This is because apps need to be updated regularly (especially iPad/iPhone apps due to updated iOS each year). If an app is entirely free, it doesn’t earn any revenue which makes it hard for a developer such as a university to do an update as updating an app also costs money.
Lite versions of speech therapy apps - free download
Lite versions of speech therapy apps are free to download (e.g. Inference Pics Lite, Empathy Pics Lite mentioned above are available on iPad/iPhone). These are very helpful as they allow you to try out a free sample of the full app version. However, Apple and Google generally don’t like lite versions of apps so we may see fewer lite versions of speech therapy apps available to download for free in the future.
Speech therapy apps - free download with in-app purchases.
Some speech therapy apps are free to download with in-app purchases. They will often have some content so that you can try out the app. These apps can be particularly helpful as you may not always want to have all the content at once.
For example, if you are working on articulation with a child you may only be working on a few sounds (e.g. p, w, f ). In this case being able to download a free articulation app that allows you to only purchase the sounds you need as in-app purchases would actually be best. It would cost you much less and you may choose to buy the remaining sounds at a later date when they are needed.
Speech therapy apps - free download and trial with a paid subscription
Subscription-based speech therapy apps may be free to download but they are not actually free to use. There is often a free trial after which you pay. The amount you pay often varies depending on the subscription package you have chosen. Different subscription-based speech therapy apps have different options.
While paying a smaller amount each month may seem like a good deal, remember that the cost will be monthly which can add up to more than you may have initially realised. If you do sign up for a subscription-based app, keep an eye on your bank balance. If you stop using the app, you'll need to remember to cancel your subscription. If you don't, you will continue to be charged.
Subscription-based apps often have a lot of content so can can be useful speech therapy tools in clinic. You can choose the speech therapy activities you need for each individual client. One downside is that there may only be some activities that you actually want to use so the cost of the monthly subscription may not be worth it. You can always sign-up for a free trial and then decide.
Paid speech therapy apps
Paid speech therapy apps are not free to download and there may not be any lite versions of them. However, there are still many ways you can find out more about a paid speech therapy app before deciding if it is what you are looking for.
1) Read the AppStore or Google Play Store descriptions
2) Do a quick Google search to see if you can find any blog reviews of the app
3) Visit the developer's website and read about the app. Most speech therapy app developers will have a specific webpage for each of their apps. There will often be lots of app photos, explanations, user guides and demo videos too.
A little bit of research can go a long way. You'll find a complete list of all Aptus Speech Therapy apps here.
We hope you have found this blog post helpful. If you would like to read more posts about a range of speech therapy topics, check out the different categories in our speech therapy blog. Sign-up to get our free monthly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.