Speech Blubs App Review with Interview - Language During Mealtime

Are you looking for a fun and functional speech therapy app to help your child with an articulation disorder or other expressive language delay or disorder?

I was recently contacted by Jerry, CEO of Speech Blubs, who gave me a wonderful overview of this easy to use and fun app for children struggling with various expressive language disorders. The best thing about the speech therapy app is that you can try it for free! If you decide that you like it, you can get a subscription to keep enjoying the app with all features unlocked. This app is very comprehensive in that it doesn’t just target treatment, it also addresses assessment. When navigating through the assessment process, the app includes questions that address various aspects of language including: pragmatics (with various questions), hearing, play, comprehension, and talking. The speech therapy app then analyzes the data and comes up with quick report. This quick report is then sent via pdf to your email so it can be easily shared with a therapist, teacher, etc. This quick assessment does not replace a speech and language assessment though. This is just a quick screening that can be a useful tool for a parent or shared with an SLP. Additionally, the app does not replace speech therapy! However, this app can be used in conjunction with speech and language therapy and can be wonderful tool for carryover.

What’s next? The screen then jumps to various articulation and language exercises that you child can practice such as early sounds, outdoor wonders, guess the sound, guess the word, numbers, family names, sing along, get into shapes, living colors, animal kingdom, ride your wheels (words for transportation), when I grow up (community helpers words), this is my body, yummy time (names of foods and drinks), first words, and mouth gym (speech therapy practices).

Are you a speech language pathologist? Check out Pro Blubs.

To learn more about this app, click here. To download this app on itunes, click here.

Do you have a Bluebee Pal? Learn how to use this interactive and educational toy with Speech Blubs here.

As a speech language pathologist and parent, I wanted to ask Jerry some questions about his app including his inspiration, how it was developed, tips for parents, etc. Thank you Jerry!

1. Can you tell me the process in developing your app, Speech Blubs.

We launched our app a year ago and since then we are constantly creating new content and developing new features. In this year we have grown, and today we have an entire team of developers, designers, parents, animators, psychologists, speech and language specialists, each contributing it’s skills and knowledge.

Speech Blubs currently includes more than 1,500 activities, face filters, voice-activated activities, and educational bonus videos, all designed to boost imitation skills, word and sound production. And we are adding more content every week. That’s why we are constantly seeking inspiration, usually in children’s favorite things. We want to know what are their favorite games, toys, books. We want to truly understand how do they play with their toys and how do they interact with their peers.

We understand that their favorite things are cartoons, and mobile games, but we want to provide smart screen time alternative. That’s why the majority of our app is about real kids teaching our young users new sounds, words, sentences, songs, etc. We design and develop our app in a way that a child gets more face-time.

2. What inspired you and your team to develop this app?

Everything started when four guys (founders) realized they all had speech impediments as children. We intimately understand how painful it can be to visit therapy and grow up being a bit different, and that’s why we aligned on a mission to help as many children as we can.

It all started with a simple idea: Wouldn’t it be nice if kids could get less screen time and more face-to-face time. We wanted to create a unique app based on that. The very first iteration of our app had real kids showing speech therapy exercises, but then after testing the idea with thousands of parents, kids and therapists, we decided to take the idea further and create something that could boost any child’s speech.

3. For parents, what is the ideal way to use this app?

First assess your child with our screener, when you download the app, we ask you a couple of questions. It takes you 5 to 10 minutes and you get a free personalised report with tips and tricks about your child’s hearing, pragmatics, comprehension, play and talking.
Model along. Your presence and enthusiasm act as additional motivation. Simply use the app yourself for getting their attention.
Let the child be in charge. Allow the children to choose which activity they want to play with, this will keep them engaged.
Limit session length, but do it regularly. Our therapists usually recommend 5 to 10 minutes a day, at least 3 times a week. You can set the reminders within the app, so you don’t miss on daily practice.
If possible, use Speech Blubs with two or more kids at a time, they challenge each other, role-play, invent stories – giggles and learning potential amplifies.
Use it in addition to one-on-one time. Combine the app with other activities, like books and an illustrated vocabulary.
Trigger conversations: Challenge the kid to have a conversation based on their head-prop. Or use the funny content from bonus videos to trigger conversations.
Our app can be used to boost any toddler’s speech, but works miracles with kids who suffer from speech delay, Down syndrome, Apraxia, or autism. Even those who are totally non-verbal often start imitating right away.