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{App Reviews} Play Apps for SLPs: Pepi Super Stores, Sago Mini Puppy Preschool & Montessori Nature

I love finding ways to use well designed kids play based apps to target goals in OMazing Kids speech therapy! The process of doing this is very similar to picking traditional toys to use in therapy. The key is to know what goals you want to target and then pick the materials (or in this case apps) to address them. Some additional considerations for picking good apps include looking for ones with the following features: clean intuitive interface, high quality graphics, voiceovers and sounds with the ability to toggle off background music, no ads, any external links are secured in a parental info area and allows for open-ended exploration.

Here are three new apps that I recently added to my collection. Here are features that make them useful for SLPs:

* Pepi Super Stores by Pepi Play, https://appsto.re/us/05sChb.i, $2.99

Has 12 areas (food court with burgers, Asian food, ice cream, pizza; sporting goods, music store, clothes, jewelry, hair salon, photo booth, grocery store & parking garage) in a shopping mall with numerous opportunities for making choices, describing, spatial concepts, compare/contrast, etc. I love the diverse mix of quirky characters. Things that could be improved in a future update: hide / secure the “new app” info to the grown-ups stuff area or add a way to toggle it off in the iPad settings area & add option to toggle off the music on the home screen (it fades out as soon as you enter the stores but still would be nice to be able to toggle it off)

* Sago Mini Puppy Preschool by Sago Sago, https://appsto.re/us/aXbQfb.i, $2.99

Features 10 puppies with four activity areas targeting counting, shapes, colors and music. It is fun to compare/contrast the various puppies and to target language goals as you play with them. I appreciate that all Sago Mini apps allow you to toggle off the “Sago News” (link to new apps) and the “For Parents” sections in the iPad settings area.

See this post for a picture of the puppies. I use this as a visual support for one of my patients with Autism who has a high interest with knowing the names of characters:

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* Montessori Nature by EDOKI ACADEMY, https://appsto.re/us/6wyBdb.i, $2.99

The app offers a realistic environment in which kids have to plant, nurture, harvest, and sell their crop. Just as real gardening would take time, it takes awhile to go through the process of planting all the way to selling the crops. This app would be fun to incorporate into a gardening theme and could be used in small chunks over several sessions.
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Angela Moorad, MS, CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist
Founder of OMazing Kids, LLC – inclusive wellness & educational activities for kids of all abilities
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Angela Moorad is the founder of OMazing Kids, LLC and is an ASHA certified & licensed pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist and Kids Yoga Teacher with 27 years experience working in a variety of settings (early intervention, schools, teletherapy & a nonprofit pediatric rehab hospital for children with developmental disabilities). She is an app beta tester for educational & therapeutic app developers and loves sharing info about great apps, products, books & toys to use with kids of all abilities.