Special Education Apps (SEN)
Supporting children with special educational needs takes patience, understanding and a range of SEN teaching resources tailor-made for each child’s requirements. Here you’ll find apps specifically designed to help SEN teachers and parents with special children in their role.
Choose from a range of SEN apps to help children with a range of skills, from speech and language, to numeracy, or social skills apps. Whether you’re supporting children with autism, dyslexia, down syndrome a visual, hearing or sensory impairment, cognitive impairments, ADHD or another learning difficulty, we have apps for every child’s needs.
If your child has a special need or learning difference, you have come to the right place. The Educational App Store receives a lot of requests for app recommendations from parents whose kids struggle with traditional learning.In this section you can find hand picked special education apps which we feel are appropriate for users with learning difficulties.
Simple Sentence Builder is an app that has been developed for children to learn how to build sentences through the art of storytelling. Moving their way through stories children must drag the parts of a sentence together to complete it and tell the story of what is happening on the page. The developer, who is based in Canada, has created an app that can also be used in French, especially useful if your child is learning a new language, is bilingual or has English as an addition language. Parents can purchase multiple stories through the app, all with the same language focus but different content. Users can also adapt the learning within the app to make it slightly harder depending on the level and ability of their child.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Intro to Letters is designed to help kids learn letters and letter sounds and also learn to trace, read, write, and record letter sounds, names, and phonograms, based on the proven methodology of Montessori. It's particularly useful for kids who need extra help, such as special needs students. Designed to help kids learn letters and letter sounds, Intro to Letters, by Montessorium is focused and clean, without animation, rewards, or other gimmicks. Kids trace letters with their fingers and hear the letter names and sounds in an activity that mimics Montessori sandpaper letters. The app includes upper and lower case letters, as well as 15 two-letter phonograms. Kids can also record the letter sounds and names if their devices are equipped with microphones.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
Naming Therapy from Tactus Therapy aims to tackle one of the most challenging tasks a stroke victim has to contend with: anomia or being able to recall names of people and words for everyday objects.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
The developers of this app are well known for producing other educational based apps and already have a number of well regarded apps in the series that this app is a part of. If you are already familiar with these apps then the look and design of this app will be very familiar to you. All of the aspects that have made their previous apps a success; from the look to the functionality are all the same. A big bonus for the app in my opinion. The app itself aims to help users understand and improve upon their abilities with the English language through everyday situations making the learning of the language more geared towards real life rather than the fundamentals and mechanics of the language itself.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Dyslexic students (and adults) use Omoguru to make the text more readable and decode words with ease.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Peek and Seek has been created to address a very specific need - that of developing visual discrimination skills in children. Through careful graphical design and varied tasks, it meets its aims.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
Faces iMake is creation based app that lets you make faces out of everyday household objects. It has an interesting feature called Faceworld that allows the children to showcase the artwork they made using the app. In FaceWorld, you can view pictures created by artists all over the world.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
Easy Dyslexia Aid is a dyslexia only version of the Easy Spelling Aid application. The app helps with the spelling of problematic words with the aid of special dyslexic font options and background colour combinations.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
"We Can Books" app is a good resource to create leveled books for beginning readers and special needs learners. It allows user's to easily make a customized book with either pictures from the user's device or pictures on the app. This is a great way to increase comprehension of sight words across 3 different levels and would be a useful supplement to any reading program or curriculum.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Otsimo AAC Tap and Talk is a symbol based alternative and augmentative communication app designed for anyone who struggles with verbal communication, including non-speaking individuals of all ages. The app allows the user the freedom and flexibility to communicate with others in an alternative manner through text-to-speech technology. It is easy to use and highly customizable to meet the individual’s communication needs. Otsimo AAC Tap and Talk comes with thousands of pre-installed unique words. In addition, the user can add or remove any card or symbol they like to further customize their communication tool. For App Store, it is available on iOS 13.2 or later, iPadOS 13.2 or later, or macOS 11.0 or later, and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. For Google Play Store it is available on Android 10 or later. It has an offer for free trial but then there are varying subscriptions to choose from. They are either a: 1 month with 3-day free trial from 5.49 USD, 1 year with 14-day free trial from 35.99 USD and a seasonal discount with 1 year subscription with 7-day free trial for 19.99USD which is offered once a year.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Articulation Arcade is a comprehensive app designed to support children aged 3.5/4+ years old and beyond who have reached a stage where they can benefit from targeted speech practice. The app can help children with speech sound delay, speech sound disorder and apraxia to give them practise through playing games that allow for speech sound practice at word, phrase, and sentence levels, facilitating targeted speech practice. Articulation Arcade is compatible with iOS 11.0 or later, Mac 11.0 and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. To access all features of the app there is a one-off payment of £49.99/$49.99.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
Leeloo AAC App - Assistive Cards app is designed to help non-verbal children to communicate with their parents, teachers and friends. It uses the AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) and PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) principles which support children with autism to communicate easily as well as other special educational needs. It has three tiers of pricing to purchase the app depending on the users needs. It works on iOS 11.0 or later, macOS 11.0 or later as well as iPad and iPad touch 11.0 or later.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Talk Tales: Simple Words, is designed to support children in saying specific target words. This is achieved through an interactive story book with teaching videos to show how to say the words. There is also a catchy song that accompanies the story. This app will benefit all toddlers and children learning to say first words, it is designed based on motor learning theory to help children with childhood apraxia or an autism spectrum disorder. The app is designed for 0-5 and 4+. It is compatible with iOS 15.1 or later and Mac 12.0 or later. It costs £11.99 to purchase.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
Talk Tales, Simple Sounds is specifically designed by a speech therapist to support non-verbal or low-verbal children with childhood apraxia or autism spectrum disorder. It is aimed at children between 0-5 years of age but could be used beyond if required. It allows for continuous repetition through an interactive storybook as well as movie to watch including all the taught sounds. There is a one-off payment of £11.99. It works on Android, IOS and Mac 11 or later.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Avaz AAC is an augmentative and alternative communication app that empowers children and adults having speech-related disabilities with a voice of their own. Avaz AAC is available to download on iOS devices.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Otsimo Speech Therapy SLP is a voice-controlled, peer modeling-centered speech and language therapy app designed for children with speech delay or impediments. Developed with advanced speech-recognition technology under the guidance of speech therapy specialists and child psychologists, the app aims to improve children’s speech and language skills at home. The vast content library consists of content and exercises on pronunciation and articulation of words and phrases under many subjects.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Mydys app is designed to support the reading of any written material. It takes a picture of the reading material and then allows you to customise how you would like to read it. It has a free version which allows for 30 credits a month, you are able to upgrade this to 600 credits or 10 000 credits at an additional cost. MYdys is perfect for people who are dyslexic or find reading a challenge. It works on IOS 12.0 or later or Mac 11.0 or later.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
Otsimo Special Education is an educational game app for the unique learning needs of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and associated learning impediments and neurodiverse children. Developed with child psychologists and educators, Otsimo Special Education integrates core educational principles with cutting-edge technologies like machine-learning to figure out the difficulty of the exercises for the child. The gamified educational content helps children learn numbers, animals, turn-taking, self-care, and much more through play. The app is highly customizable to fit every child’s special needs.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Spoken app is for people who are unable to communicate using their voice. It is designed for teenagers and adults who are unable to use their voice due to aphasia, nonverbal autism, ALS, Parkinson's, cerebral palsy, stroke, or other speech and language disorders. Spoken offers a free version with limited features, to be able to use the app to the best intention you would need to subscribe to a monthly or yearly subscription. The app is compatible with IOS 11 or later, MacOS 11 or later and Android devices.
Devices: Android, iPhone, iPad
Talk For Me is specifically for those with speech communication difficulties, Influenced by Speech Pathologists & Speech Therapists, Talk For Me is a multipurpose communication tool that allows people communicate their needs using images that they take with their iPod, iPhone or iPad. Talk For Me is an app that makes communication easy and simple.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
iPrompts is a highly recommended app for supporting organizational skills, setting expectations for performance, and setting up subtle supports and reminders. Users can create and modify visual schedules, as well as use a countdown timer with picture supports to indicate how much longer a task or activity will last.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
ABA Flashcards is an app that promote learning and language building. You'll find more than 200 flash cards with images for kids to practice connecting visual emotion cues like body language and facial expressions to written and spoken words. The app allows users to create their own cards to add to the stock cards and to record their own voices on the cards. Clear audio and text for auditory and visual learners. ABA Flashcards is available to download on iOS and Android devices. Also check our list of autism apps that will teach your child necessary skills in a fun and engaging way.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
TouchChat HD for iPad is a full-featured communication solution for individuals who have difficulty using their natural voice.
Devices: iPhone, iPad
PandaPal - Autism Communication System is an affordable easy to use Communication System, designed by Kim Scott, M.
Devices: iPhone, iPad