Category Archives: Pragmatics App

Feel Electric!

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Price: FREE

Seller: Sesame Workshops App

Tablet: iPad, Android

Educational Aspects:

  • Non-verbal communication
  • Body language
  • Facial expressions
  • Vocabulary strengthening and building

Description:

Feel Electric is a free app that encourages the exploration of emotional vocabulary and self-expression.  It has three games, a digital diary to record moods and feelings, a creative story maker, and much more.

Review:

When we discuss teaching pragmatics and all that is involved with non-verbal communication, there isn’t a better app then Feel Electric!  It is a jam-packed app full of educational content that can be geared towards an array of individuals in differing age groups.  The app is carefully laid out and detailed step-by-step by the characters on the screen.  Feel Electric provides versatile learning in the areas of body language, understanding complex emotions, facial expressions, and most importantly how to express oneself both appropriately and accurately.  As therapists, using this app teaches critical skills and grows the end user’s vocabulary (outside of the typical feelings happy, mad, and sad).  It provides the individual with engaging tasks that keep them both focused and on topic no matter where they navigate to within the app.

Pros:                                                                      Cons:

  1. Free
  2. Teaches pragmatics
  3. Wide variety of content
  4. Versatile to many age group (great for teens)

Feel Electric is a remarkable app that can be utilized in groups as well as individual settings.  It is definitely worth downloading and exploring what it can do.

Click to view and/or purchase Feel Electric!

Provided by: Andrea Flynn, B.A., SLPA

Toontastic

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Price: FREE

Seller: Launchpad Toys

Tablet: iPad

Educational Aspects:

  • Storytelling and/or retelling story
  • WH questions (who, what, where, when, why, and how)
  • Increasing utterance length
  • Developing complex sentences
  • Pretend Play
  • Linking ideas
  • Improving syntax
  • Following directions
  • Pragmatics
  • Increasing use of pronouns/verbs
  • Comprehending spatial terms
  • Intonation
  • Teaches flexibility and turn taking… to name a few

Description:

Toontastic is a creative educational app that allows children, teens, and adults of all ages to become the creator of their very own cartoon!

Review:

Toontastic is a one of a kind ingenious app available for free in the App Store!  From the moment the download is complete you will want to immediately begin playing. The catchy background music and advanced graphics are what truly leave this app pioneering the way of future apps to come.  The apps homepage is well organized providing practical navigation throughout the entire app.  The app begins teaching and explaining what is going to happen from the moment you click “New Cartoon.”  From a therapist’s perspective this is brilliant because the app explains the Story Arc and details out what should be happening in each setting.  The creator’s job is to listen and click on the corresponding picture (i.e. setup, conflict, challenge, climax, resolution) of where they want to begin.  Another strong educational factor in this app is its ability to teach emotions/feelings.  It not only lets the characters act out and sound a certain way through recording, but it also ties in background music that directly relates to the mood of the scene. This provides children and teens with a well-rounded view of emotions and feelings and helps them to comprehend Pragmatics. A feature that would be helpful for therapists and other educators on Toontastic, would be providing multiple recording sessions per scene.  When just one person is working on Toontastic managing and recording a scene is rather easy.  However, when you get 3+ people working on a cartoon, it gets hard to animate all the characters and have each child say their line in one recording.

Pros:                                                               Cons:

  1. FREE                                                    1.  Hard to record in groups
  2. Easy to use                                          2.  Mood music overpowers character’s voices
  3. Numerous educational purposes
  4. Teaches the Story Arc
  5. Encourages imaginative play
  6. Toontube feature (watching other videos from around the world)
  7. Parent/Teacher Guide on website- filled with helpful information and interactive questions. http://launchpadtoys.com/toontastic/parent-teacher-guide/
  8. Toy Store feature- Purchase extra scenes individually or All Access Pass for $9.99

This is a must have app!  Many therapists I personally know use this app across multiple settings.  The creators of this app are genius and seriously thought of everything.  From the kid-friendly look of the app to the Parent/Teacher Guide filled with helpful info, tips and a run down of the Story Arc!  It is innovative, educational, and beyond creative… what else can beat that?

Click to view and/or download Toontastic

Provided by: Andrea Flynn, B.A., SLPA