Cultivating Speech Success
One Sound At A Time
Apraxia Farm for Childhood Apraxia of Speech Therapy in Children
Empowering Every Child's Voice
Apraxia Farm is an innovative app meticulously crafted by certified speech-language pathologists specifically for children diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech and severe speech-sound disorders.
This groundbreaking tool stands out by offering unparalleled customization in therapy, accommodating multiple levels of difficulty, and targeting both vowels and consonants. Moreover, it allows for the integration of custom words into therapy sessions, ensuring that each child’s unique needs and challenges are addressed.
Apraxia Farm is not just an app but a comprehensive solution that empowers therapists and families to tailor their approach to speech therapy, making every session as effective and engaging as possible.
“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 Milligan
Spech-Language Pathologist
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.
Features
Customizable Therapy Sessions
Users can tailor therapy sessions with extensive customization options, including multiple levels of difficulty, specific vowel and consonant targets, and the addition of custom words to directly address the unique needs of each child.
Multi-User Support for Group Sessions
Facilitates group therapy sessions by allowing data to be collected on multiple utterances for each student, supporting simultaneous multiple user engagement without compromising the ease of data collection.
Video Modeling for Accurate Pronunciation
Incorporates video modeling of consonants and vowels to demonstrate accurate sound production, aiding children in visualizing and replicating speech sounds.
Built-In Homework and Printables
Unique to Apraxia Farm, this feature allows for direct printing of homework from the app, making it easier for SLPs to provide practice materials and for parents to continue therapy goals at home.
Progress Monitoring and Data Collection
Offers detailed tracking and assessment capabilities, with progress monitoring that breaks down data by history, consonants, vowels, and syllable structure, enabling SLPs and parents to monitor improvements over time.
Interactive and Engaging Exercises
Engages children with interactive exercises that make learning fun. From the Sound Windows to The Farm House and The Words Farm, children are motivated to practice and improve their speech sounds in an animated and supportive environment.
For Home Use
Why Use Apraxia Farm for Home Practice?
In the journey towards overcoming childhood apraxia of speech, consistency and reinforcement outside the therapy room are key to success. Apraxia Farm is designed with this very purpose in mind, offering a bridge between professional therapy sessions and at-home practice. This app is an invaluable tool for parents looking to actively engage in their child’s speech development journey, offering a host of benefits that make it a must-have for home practice:
Apraxia Farm mirrors the therapeutic activities your child experiences with their speech-language pathologist (SLP), enabling a smooth transition of practice to the home environment. This consistency ensures that children can continue to work on their speech goals, reinforcing and consolidating the skills learned during their therapy sessions.
With its ability to customize therapy sessions according to the specific needs of each child, Apraxia Farm ensures that home practice is as effective as it is engaging. Parents can tailor the difficulty levels, choose specific vowel and consonant targets, and even incorporate custom words that are meaningful to their child, making practice sessions both personalized and fun.
Apraxia Farm empowers parents to take an active role in their child’s speech therapy process. The app’s user-friendly design and built-in video tutorials provide the necessary tools for parents to understand how to best support their child’s practice, fostering a collaborative environment that encourages children to engage and participate actively.
The app offers an invaluable feature of progress tracking, allowing parents and therapists to monitor the child’s improvement over time. This data can help in adjusting therapy goals and strategies, ensuring that each child continues to make meaningful strides in their speech development.
Apraxia Farm’s accessibility makes it an ideal tool for busy families. Whether at home, on vacation, or on the go, children can continue their speech practice anytime and anywhere, ensuring that they keep progressing without interruptions to their therapy routine.
Beyond speech production, Apraxia Farm aids in enhancing overall communication skills. Through interactive play and practice, children not only work on specific speech sounds but also on using language more effectively, boosting their confidence and social interaction abilities.
The perfect childhood apraxia of speech therapy app for clinical or home speech sound practice
Explore the Farm Now
What I truly love about Apraxia Farm is its versatility and adaptability. The extensive customization options allow me to target the specific needs of my students, and I especially appreciate the feature that lets me add my own words. With a focus on phoneme production and the inventive use of the camera to provide visual cues within the app itself, it offers an innovative approach to speech therapy. An added benefit that sets Apraxia Farm apart is the ability to print homework directly from the app—a feature I've not found elsewhere. Lastly, the way it organizes and breaks down data by history, consonants, and vowels aids in detailed tracking and assessment, enhancing the overall therapy experience.
Jenn
Crazy Speech World
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.
Jessica Chase
Speech Language Pathologist
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.
Maureen Wilson
Speech Language Pathologist
“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!”
Jenna Rayburn
Speech Language Pathologist
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.
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.
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
Play Video
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.
Progress Monitoring
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.
Sources
- 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/
