Smarty Ears Launches Four Apps to Improve Children’s Speech and Language

Dallas, TX, May 4, 2012. Award-winning educational app company Smarty Ears has released four apps designed to help children improve their speech and language skills: Fun & Functional, Categories Learning Center, Go-Togethers and Language Adventures. Each one lets teachers, parents and speech therapists tailor sessions to each student’s needs.

Language Adventures

Designed by speech-language pathologists Nichole Hanneken Ontis and Danielle Sears, Language Adventures is a themed game board with dice rolling, token moving and player selection. It helps children build vocabulary, naming and description skills in real-world settings like the classroom, cafeteria and playground. Its colorful design works for several players with different skill levels and goals.

“I have personally used Language Adventures with students in 6th through 12th grade. The students are very excited to use the app and frequently ask to play it! The set-up makes it easy for students to learn while playing independently in a small group, yet gives the therapist or teacher endless opportunities to build on the questions. The data tracking has made it easy to follow their progress over sessions, and with three levels of game boards and hundreds of target words, students don’t get bored with it.”

Nichole Hanneken Ontis, co-author

Fun & Functional and Go-Togethers

Both apps were written by SLP Rosie Simms to improve language comprehension and expression. Fun & Functional helps children identify and describe how real-world objects are used, building language and life skills. Go-Togethers targets categories and helps children identify objects that go together. Both are customizable, track receptive responses and work for all ages.

Categories Learning Center

Categories Learning Center helps students build the memory, word retrieval and vocabulary skills they need to listen, speak, read and write. Written by Barbara Fernandes and Mary Huston, it builds receptive and expressive vocabulary through pictures and helps with naming and choosing categories.

“By sorting items into categories and subcategories (for example, not just animals, but ‘animals that live on a farm’), children develop word networks that help them learn and retrieve vocabulary. Categories are everywhere in our world, and though students with language difficulties struggle with verbal organization, this app gives them an engaging way to work on these skills.”

Sean Sweeney, Product Development Manager, Smarty Ears