Reviewed by Cynthia
SpeechTree is an iPad only app from IAC Professionals, it was created by Angela Desideri -a certified Speech Language Pathologist and AAC specialist (read our interview with Angela here). SpeechTree is the first & only AAC app that combines a Complete AAC Communication System with an Interactive Learning Program. The combination benefits both beginning and emerging communicators who require a lot of practice, encouragement, instruction, and support to develop their communication skills properly.I rarely get the chance to use an expensive app and believe the cost is warranted, but SpeechTree has proved it’s worth. After spending $169.99, most of us will expect a hand-hold and possibly dinner. You won’t get the dinner, but you will get the hand-hold.
SpeechTree has been created cleanly and is very user-friendly. Upon opening the app, you are given a tree with three choices, “Lessons”, “Communicate”, and “Data”, with a small button for settings as well. The first order of business is to visit “Lessons” as this will set the stage for Data and Communication. 21 lessons are available for download, including the most commonly used words for “food”, “clothes”, “shapes”. After choosing the lesson you proceed through three levels which gather data and walk you through the process. 1)”Teaching” -shows what the words and pictures symbolize, and includes text and professional narration. 2) “Receptive” here the student is given choices and prompted to choose the requested item. 3)”Expressive” which is brilliant to me as a parent, because it puts what has been learned to use as communication. Back in the main screen, you can visit “Data” where the lessons results are laid out beautifully, complete with bar graphs, percentages, a place for notes, print option, and email option. Also available on the main screen is the “Communicate” option, where it all comes together. The settings are very user friendly and easy to navigate.
As a non-professional, I often find myself stumped when presenting a new AAC app to my young son with Autism. I also find myself getting lost in many AAC apps when creating or merely navigating the categories, which isn’t very helpful if I plan on presenting it to my son to utilize. That did not happen in this app, he and I have been able to work gradually and comfortably with SpeechTree. I have only a few recommendations for making this app even better. I would like to see a child’s voice included, I would like to see the app made universal, and I would like to see portions of the app available for purchase at a lesser price. I spoke to the developer who responded that she already has plans in the works for all of those suggestions and also said, “We have submitted a new app to Apple called “SpeechTree Lessons” which is a free and easy way to try our learning section only. One individual lesson (Animals 1) is free, and other individual lessons are available for purchase for $5.99 each. The learning section systematically teaches one-word utterances and how to use the message window to communicate.”
As a whole, the app is well-designed, easy to navigate and customize, and is visually appealing. For someone who needs start-to-finish help learning and implementing AAC, SpeechTree is very highly recommended. If the $169.99 price tag scares you, then sit tight and try out the lessons when they are published in the app store to get a feel for what the app has to offer.
If you would like to know more you can also watch this video of the app in action:
SpeechTree
by IAC Professionals INC
Category: Education, Medical
Requirements: Compatible with iPadFourthGen, iPad 2 WiFI, iPadMini4G, iPadThirdGen, iPad 3G, iPadThirdGen4G, iPad WiFi, iPadFourthGen4G, iPadMini, iPad 2 3G
Size: 814.12 MB
There is also a lite version available:
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SpeechTree Lessons
by IAC Professionals INC
Category: Education, Medical Requirements: Compatible with iPadThirdGen4G, iPadFourthGen4G, iPad 2 WiFI, iPadMini, iPadMini4G, iPad 2 3G, iPadThirdGen, iPad 3G, iPadFourthGen, iPad WiFi Size: 719.96 MB |
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Please use our App Store button above if you decide to buy this app. It doesn’t cost any extra and a small portion of the cost goes to support the work we do here at The iMums!
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[ratings]
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Giveaway
If you would like to win a promo code for this app, please enter via the Rafflecopter Widget. Winners must contact The iMums within 48hrs of the winners being announced to claim their prize. This giveaway is open to everyone, worldwide, and an iTunes account is required to claim the prize. Good luck!
Cynthia
Latest posts by Cynthia (see all)
- Curly Hair and Autism - April 2, 2013
- SpeechTree by IAC Professionals- Review - June 19, 2012
Alison, Amanda, Grace and Mary are four mothers from different parts of the world dedicated to educating parents about the best digital stories, educational apps, fun games and technology products available for their children. We also offer the latest news in apps for kids, interesting articles, developer interviews, free apps and regular giveaways!
I love the lessons that are included with this app. I would use this with some of my non-verbal childrewn.
This app would help me with language teaching for students who are non-vocal.
Communication apps are the most important use of the iPad to me. I have used communication tools with my son for 20 years. Really like to share the strength of theses apps with families and schools I work with.
I would sooooo like to gift this app to the family of a child I work with. Then we would use it on the iPad he has at school.
Great review – looks good for my daughter
Communication is essential in communication. This would help me teach language skills to my non-verbal students. The lessons with the app are amazing and they can be tied into IEP goals and our standards!
I would use this with my 5 year old autistic son. He only uses his words to request. His SLP and I are on the hunt for a good AAC for him and this looks really good to me!
This app would be a great tool to use with my students who are non-verbal or have limited verbal skills. I love the learning and data components.
I would use it with my non verbal students. It would also be very beneficial as I work with students addressing vocabulary skills.
I would love to use this with all my nonverbal/minimally verbal kids with Autism in therapy.
I would use this app for comprehensive communication development in the centralized autism classes that I serve. I love the lessons!
Simply an amazing AAC app that would help my daughter to verbalize her feelings and what her needs are! A true blessing to us!
Thanks for this amazing opportunity! I would share this with my daughters speech therapist at school.
This would be super useful for my son. I love the fact that teaching is integrated into this AAC app. It would make things so much easier.
I will love to have this app, it seems amazing to learn to communicate, thank you very much for this opportunity
Currently Owen learns new vocabulary separately and it then goes into his PEC book and iPad at home. To have one app that enables him to learn/reinforce new words and to then use those same words to communicate would be amazing. Thanks for the giveaway.
This app would be very beneficial to me because I work with children who have multi disabilities and many of them are non verbal. I need an AAC app to try out with my students to help determine if this AAC app is a good option to help them communicate. Also I consult with schools about the best apps they should use with their special needs population. I provide app reviews, recommendations, and train educational teams about how to use the iPad and apps with children.
I would love to try this app because I work in a low income school and have had children who couldn’t afford to get any kind of communication device. This would allow me to try the iPad and app with them to get funding from other sources for a device of their own!
As a speech-language pathologist I work with kids of many ages and varying abilities. This app would be useful in so many ways for many of them, from the nonverbal emerging communicators to those needing more support learning language.
All I can say is I want this app SOOOOOO bad, but can not afford it. I mean I want it really bad
This would be a great tool for my son who has Apraxia.
I would use this app with my non-verbal daughter!
My daughter is non-verbal and it is so frustrating for her when we can’t communicate effectively. Most of the SLPs I’ve come across have good intentions, but we struggle to teach Serenity to use the AAC devices (we have a Vantage Lite, but it is too complicated for Serenity. Currently we use So Much 2 Say). I know there is a program out there that will work for her, I just have to research and find it and who knows, this could be it. I love the training program is included.
Wow this app looks really neat. Looks like something useful for my apraxia son.
I would love to use this app with several of my students in therapy!
I would love this app for my ASD son and his classmates. I would be fantastic for them
The data piece looks like it would be really useful so that we could use it with multiple clients!
We have this app and I can’t say enough good things about it. We are just starting to use it with our 4yo. I LOVE the simplicity, the clean interface and the customization tools. I highly recommend this app to anyone looking to use the iPad as an AAC device.
I’ve tried so many different speech Apps but my son dislikes most of them and they also tend to be too complex for him to use – whereas this one looks really nice. He loves other applications & printed visuals that look like this and I’m sure the beautiful look will be something that will appeal to him and motivate him to use as it subtly teaches him at tge same time. I really like the look of this.
It would help me with the kids I work with!
I would ole to try this with some of my students.
This app would help with the many speech and language impaired kids we work with!
I would love to win this app for my son who is 5 and on the autism spectrum. We do daily speech therapy at home and this would be wonderful.
I would love to win this app for my son who is 5 and on the autism spectrum. We do daily speech therapy at home and this would be wonderful.
this looks like a great app
This would really help my daughter! She is 4 and cant talk yet. Thanks for the chance!
Rebecca
I would give this app to my friend who has a daughter that is non-verbal.
I would love to have this app for my son who has Autism. I love the fact that there are lessons built right into the app.
Oh my goodness this would be so useful. I would use it with my two children who have Down syndrome.
This would be a wonderful app for my son who is mainly non verbal. It would aid him in communicating with others and hopefully help with his frustration of not being able to communicate his thoughts like he would want to.
I love to give parents options. This could be another tool in my toolbox for our non-verbal kids.
This looks like a very versatile communication app!
We are currently trying to find easy to use communication apps for my daughter with autism, MR and severe epilepsy. She has proved to be a challenge but the real looking pictures are promising!
We are currently trying to find easy to use communication apps for my daughter with autism, MR and severe epilepsy. She has proved to be a challenge but the real looking pictures are promising!
To help my son with sentence structure and basic word understanding. Also help learn new words.
This app would help me teach nonverbal children to talk.
This app woul be very useful in helping with my 4 year old son learn how to say words, put together sentences and talk. He still only uses the same 4 words he has said for 2 years, no progress and i KNOW this would help us!
This would be a wonderful app for my son to learn to chain, not only requests… Iwant, but other starter words to form full sentences.
The SpeechTree AAC (and so much more) app would be a perfect fit for our 2 1/2 non-verbal little princess.
What a great tool to help young children learn to use an AAC. They can be daunting, even for adults and the Speech Tree has developed a great method to assist communication and introduce an AAC to children. Thanks for a great review. We’ll be looking at this app for our own toolkit.
. I would use it with my Child who have Down syndrome.
would be great for my daughter to use in class when she is finding it difficult to comminicate at school, she doesnt speak very well at all.
Love the concept of an AAC and interactive learning in 1 app!
I would use this to build receptive and expressive skills. I like the ability to build comprehension of symbols and then integrate them into communication.
This app would be useful for my speech therapy clients!
I would use this app with the many children on my case load with ASD who are either non verbal or minimally verbal. Their families and I are always looking for ways to help my speech-language patients to be able to “tell or show us what they know”! I am a SLP in a rural area with a private practice.
Would love to have this for my speech therapy caseload.
I would love to win this for use with my students and sons! One son is adopted and autistic, other son is HOH, and this would be a great classroom tool for my students!
Looks like a great app. I’d love to try it.
I love that SpeechTree is an AAC Communication System with an Interactive Learning Program. It would be great for my non verbal son who has Autism with a Learning Disability. Thank you for this giveaway!
I hope I am not too late to enter this giveaway, thanks for the opportunity
I will use it with my 5 years old son, thanks
Definately improve the quality of life in my son’s communication ability!
I have 5-8 new non- verbal kids coming my way next year. This
app would be great for them!
This app looks like a wonderful tool for taking nonverbal students through the steps they need to learn to use a comprehensive communication AAC system.Would love to be able to use it in therapy
My son needs a way to communicate that I can help him with. We need something user friendly.
As SLP’s above said language for nonverbal children!
So excited! Thank you!