Language Trainer {App Review}

Maaaaaan I haven’t reviewed an app in a long time! I have been using Language Trainer from Smarty Ears in my room for quite a bit and am excited to bring this review to you guys! First things first, check out the Support button in the upper left corner…this is where you will find Back Up/Restore links, plus links to to information about the app and Smarty Ears.

If you click on “About the App”, you will get a complete written explanation of the app and how it works. I love having this as a reference! Here is what is says about the app:

“Language Trainer was created specifically to help individuals improve their mastery of spoken language. Designed by a certified speech-language pathologist, Language Trainer is perfect for working on vocabulary, word finding, stuttering, and receptive or expressive language therapy.”

Language Trainer has 4 different activities to target Picture Identification, Picture Naming, Divergent Naming, and Sentence Completion. Let’s take a closer look!

When you select Practice on the home page, it will bring up the option to select your users. You can also import clients from the Smarty Ears’ App, Therapy Report Center (which I love). You also have the option to change the settings on this page by choosing the Settings button in the upper right corner. Here you can change the the number options for Picture Identification and Divergent Naming, Date Format, Increasing Difficulty Level, and at the bottom, you can modify the database!

Here you can select/deselect what you want to target within each of the apps’ activities! Love the possibilities here… but I do wish I could add my own targets to it also!

Once you have set your players and settings, you are ready to get started! You will choose which activity to target in your session. Kind of a bummer for those of us who work with group…there is no multiplayer option, so only one user profile can be used at a time.

For picture identification, the app says a word and the user chooses the matching picture. You can have up to 5 pictures on the screen to choose from. Students can also have the word repeated, and the progress is shown at the top. I do wish I could turn that option off because some of my students get really frustrated when they see that number low. If they get an answer wrong, the option just disappears, so they still have the opportunity

For Picture Naming, the student must name the picture shown, and you will score them on the left side with correct, incorrect, or cued. You also have the option to record their answers!

For Divergent Naming, the prompt is read and the as the student names them, you mark correct/incorrect on the empty boxes. You can also record answers for this activity!

For Sentence Completion, the instructions and sentence stim are read to the student. You score their response as correct, incorrect, and cued, and you also have the recording option with this activity.

As usual, Smarty Ears gives a great report of performance, with dates, activity completed, settings chosen, and accuracy.

You also have the option to add notes.

You can share the report via email, print, or open in iBooks or Dropbox (if you have those apps). You can also export all of the data to TRC.

Overall, I like Language Trainer…I think it is great for data collection and monitoring progress in therapy or RtI interventions. You can use it with a variety of speech/language disorders and a wide age range!

Language Trainer is available in iTunes for $14.99