Today I have the pleasure of sharing my personal experience with using the Articulation Test Center by Little Bee Speech.  An app code was provided to me, so that I could try this app out with my speech students.  No additional compensation was given.  The words I am about to write are my own opinions and insights!  BTW, I had to administer this test to my two year old because school is not in session.  So my insights are reflected of working with the toddler age population.  Take a peak at Little Bee Speech’s youtube video tutorial to get some more insights about this app.

Instantly, my daughter was very excited to see the vivid, real pictures.  She loved having me record her voice and giggled when she heard herself on the voice recorder.

If my daughter didn’t know the word, I could push on the picture and it would be modeled.  I could also record her response which is great when you aren’t sure of the production.  Hanna loved hearing her voice and wanted to record every time after she saw me use that feature.

If there is an error, you slide the white tile up to the sound tile and it will replace the correct sound with the error.  You can also document phonological processes and write notes in the event the student exhibited a distortion or an approximation.

Check out these cool picture scenes!  These are for the speech sample that you can RECORD and transcribe.  If you swipe your finger, you can access more of the picture scene.  This is my favorite part of the app.  I could also see you using this to grab a story sample or an informal language sample to analyze MLU, grammar and vocabulary usage.

If you have a little guy or gal that is quiet, you can have them click on the different characters in the picture scene and it will become enlarged on the screen.  There will be a prompt question underneath the character that the student can answer.

What I love about this app:

• Love the ability to record a sample of a student’s speech in conversation.  This is a very cool built in feature.  They have picture scenes and questions to help prompt elicitation of sounds.
• The pictures are real photos and by purchasing this app, you will always have really good pictures that will never go out of date.
• Don’t have to remember to bring an artic test between sites!  This is a great resource for a traveling SLP.
• You can email and/or print the results from the test.  It also shows age of mastery for sounds, which is helpful for explaining speech development to parents.  I love that I can copy and paste into a report in the event that I have given other measures in different areas such as language.
• Great for progress monitoring and probing for new sounds especially with the picture scenes.  You can see if the sounds are carrying over into spontaneous speech.
• There is a rating after you give the speech sample for speech intelligibility.  Although, it is an informal judgment, it helps provide a snap shot of the student’s overall speech.
• The speech sample is an awesome feature!  I love that I can record on my IPAD and it is with the student’s profile, so I don’t have to search around for the file.  I am also able to transcribe the sample and it will be included in the report that is generated.
• I like that the screener portion of the app is broken down by age.  There are not a lot of cards in the screener portion except for ages 6 and above.  This makes it a very quick tool to give to see if further testing is needed.  A perfect solution if this student has RTI or on an SST plan.

• In the school setting, most SLP’s have to obtained standardized measures to determine eligibility.  There are limitations with this assessment as it is not standardized.  If you need a progress monitoring tool, this is definitely something that you would use often.
• This app is priced reasonable for school districts and private practices, but some SLP’s may find the price for the app ($49.99) to be out of their price range to purchase with personal funds.  I would definitely be more willing to spend money on this app if it was standardized.
• There are 59 pictures in this test.  My 2 year old had to take a break from the activity due to attention.  For younger kids, this could be a problem and they may want to exit the app to play other apps.
• There is no error code to mark a frontal or lateral lisp, but the app provides a notes page on each picture, where you can put a note about the students error.
• It is very cool that there is a Screener and I wished that the screener for the 6 and up ages, would be shorter.  There are 48 stimulus cards in the screener and 59 cards in the full test.

Overall, this app is pretty handy for an SLP and would be great for SLP’s working with those younger kids.  I can even see this app being adapted to collect language samples, which is a plus!  Grab this effective and easy to use articulation assessment tool on ITUNES and if you shop the back to school sale, you would be getting a great deal!