Apraxia Farm for Childhood Apraxia of Speech Therapy in Children

Apraxia Farm is a unique application created specifically to help children affected by childhood apraxia of speech and severe speech-sound disorders. With multiple levels, both vowel and consonant targets, and the ability to create custom words, Apraxia Farm is perfect for childhood apraxia of speech therapy and helps those students struggling with sound production. Designed by certified speech-language pathologists, Apraxia Farm provides video modeling of consonants and vowels, word targets by syllable structure (e.g., CV, VC, CVC, etc.), customization of targets, and progress monitoring making it perfect for use by SLPs, special educators, and parents alike.

“Whether a child is working on basic, voluntary lip closure to a child at the word level struggling with prosody, Apraxia Farm offers an evidence-based approach to target the speech difficulties children with CAS face.” Katie Miligan M.S CCC-SLP

For clinicians

Apraxia Farm was designed with special education curriculum to assist in sound production and verbal apraxia therapy by utilizing technology to present sounds and words to students while collecting data. Apraxia Farm utilizes a phonotactic intervention strategy by allowing targets to be selected by consonant or vowel and by planning movement sequences within syllables. This allows the student to produce words of varying syllable shape and moving into more complex word patterns (Velleman, 2006) that are used in articulate plus.

Research Based

Apraxia Farm was designed to assist in childhood apraxia of speech therapy and sound production therapy by utilizing technology to present sounds and words to students while collecting data. Apraxia Farm utilizes a phonotactic intervention strategy by allowing targets to be selected by consonant or vowel and by planning movement sequences within syllables. This allows the students to produce words of varying syllable shape and moving into more complex word patterns (Velleman, 2006) helping them in overcoming dyslexia and stuttering as well.

For Home Practice

Apraxia Farm features easy-to-follow menus and a built-in video tutorial. Under the guidance of your child’s speech therapist you can extend therapy time to your home and complete home programming as suggested and make it fun and functional. Working on the same therapy techniques at home that your child learns at school or at the clinic is an excellent way to encourage generalization of skills and improve progress.

The perfect childhood apraxia of speech therapy app for clinical or home speech sound practice

Because Apraxia Farm is a multi-user application it can be easily utilized for group sessions. Apraxia Farm allows data to be collected on multiple utterances for each student allowing for many productions to be used for maximum therapy benefit without losing the ease in data collection (Edeal & Gildersleeve-Neumann, 2011).

How to use our app for childhood apraxia of speech therapy

Apraxia Farm is designed for single or multi-player use. Players may be imported into Apraxia Farm from the Therapy Report Center or entered on the home screen. Up to four players can be selected with individual selections for targets in both sound groups and syllable structure. If the student has used Apraxia Farm before, the adult also has the option of repeating the targets from the previous session. Multiple students can work on different targets in the same session. The level of play depends on which area the adult chooses to visit. Apraxia Farm has three areas from which to select: The Sound Windows (sound production), The Farm House (single word production), and The Words Farm (multiple word production). Visual stimuli are present in each area from animated phoneme production in Sound Windows to multiple word pictures in The Words Farm.

The Sound Windows

The Sound Windows activity was designed to help students practice individual sounds and syllables. Each window contains animations for vowels and consonants to provide a great animated visual aid for phoneme production. The Sound Windows allows the player to activate the iPad camera and monitor his or her own productions while following the visual prompt. To change the target sound, simply tap on the target window and a choice wheel will display. Turn it to the correct sound and tap done.

The Farm House

The Farm House is where players can practice single word production. Fully customizable by sound groups, vowels, and syllable structure, the Farm House is the intermediate step between syllables and multi-syllabic words. The farm house includes seven (7) syllable structures (CV & VC, CVC, CVCV, CCVC, etc.). With over 22 consonant and vowel options, there is a wide variety of words to practice. When the Farm House is selected, a window will populate with the selection of targets. Simply choose the syllable structure and the sound groups for each player. When there are multiple players, each individual will have his or her own targets for easy customization.

When choosing a target, first select the syllable structure. Then choose the sound group that is being targeted. For instance, if the syllable structure level 1: “CV and VC” and the sound group “p, b, m” is selected, all consonant-vowel and vowel-consonant words containing p, b, and m will be used (e.g., “boo” “my” and “aim”). If the level 2 syllable structure (CVC) is selected and the “short A” phoneme is selected all consonant-vowel-consonant short A words will be used (e.g. “man” “cash” and “bat”).

If the user selects more than one syllable structure or more than one sound group, all of the words for the selections are used. For instance, if the user selects CVC and CVCV words both of those syllable structures will be displayed. If the user selects p, b, m and short A, then ALL p, b, m (e.g., “buck” “bar” “peel” and “pole”) will be displayed AS WELL AS all the short A words (e.g., “wag” “gas” and “can”). This ability to combine syllable structure and sound groups allows the individual to tailor each session and maximize the potential progress for every individual.

The Words Farm

In the Words Farm, the player can learn and practice multi-syllabic word production by combining words from the farm house. The player can choose to repeat words and syllable structure for each area or change the options for maximum growth. Fully customizable by sound groups, number of syllables, and syllable structure, the Words Farm is the third area of Apraxia Farm and the last step toward completing sentences. To select the target, simply tap on the sign post to choose the sound and syllable structure.

Video Tutorial

Voice Recording Tools

Apraxia Farm has several tools available for developing self-monitoring skills. In the Sound Windows area, the player can access the camera to video his or her mouth moving the same as the animated model in the next window. In both the Farm House and the Word Farm, players can access the audio recorder to record their sounds and words. A tap on the red “record” button begins the recording. A tap on the green arrow allows the audio to be played.

Settings

Apraxia Farm has a “settings” button on the home screen. The settings button allows the user to modify the word pool and allows the adult to select the specific words used for the session. A simple touch selects or deselects the word choice.

Customization

The Add Custom Images window will display. The individual can choose the image, the phoneme, vowel, and the syllable structure for which the word should appear. Tap the red record button to record the audio for that image. Tap “add” to complete the steps and add the custom word into the word bank. It is now available for all students to use.

Data Collection and Reports

Data is collected with sound production. Each student can produce multiple targets per turn. A touch to the avatar changes the active student and begins the data collection for that student. When the session is complete, a simple touch to the home button and confirmation tap brings the app to the reports function. The data includes: date of practice, target phoneme, syllable structure level, percent accuracy and number of words attempted. Tapping on recordings brings up the student’s recordings during that session. A graph is provided for easy progress monitoring. Apraxia Farm data collection reports can be exported to The Therapy Report Center. Apraxia Farm also creates backup data in iTunes that will allow it to be restored if for some reason the app needs to be deleted or a new iDevice is purchased.

Homework

Keep your students on track towards their goals with built-in homework sheets. It has never been so easy to share an activity for your students to practice at home. Homework can be directly printed from an “air ready” printer or emailed as a PDF!

Features

Multiple player – multiple levels
Data collection
Recording feature
Camera modeling
Ability to choose by phoneme, syllable structure, and length of utterance
Built-in Homework
Data collection by session, phoneme, syllable structure,
Compatible with The Therapy Report Center

Reviews

Apraxia Farm has definitely been a motivating application for my students who prefer animated and illustrated images or need an animated cue of mouth movement on an age-appropriate model instead of staring at my face all of the time.

Old MacDonald wishes his farm had this much going on! Apraxia Farm is the newest app from Smarty Ears. This wonderful, farmed themed app finally provides SLPs with a new resource to target apraxia or severe phoneme production difficulties. The farm theme is cute and engaging without being to ‘busy’, this is a great balance for my little friends.

“The app takes into consideration the increasing complexity we use to target words including sound, syllable, words and combining words. I love the ability to select very specific targets included vowels and individual consonants. Printing homework is a huge plus, because finding words in just CV or VC can be difficult!”

Edeal, D., and Gildersleeve-Neumann, C. (2011) The importance of production frequency in therapy for childhood apraxia of speech. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology Vol.20 95-110 May 2011.
Hodson, B. (2007) Evaluating & enhancing children’s phonological systems. Thinking Publications University, Greenville, SC.; 138.
Justice, L. , & Ezell, H., (2004) Print referencing: An emergent literacy enhancement strategy and its clinical applications. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35(2), 185-193.
Velleman, S. (2006) Childhood apraxia of speech: Assessment/treatment for the school-aged child. ASHA; retrieved from: http://www.asha.org/Events/convention/handouts/2006/SC09_Velleman_Shelley/

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