New & Featured App Reviews

Drillaby App Review

Kathryn Jenkins September 9, 2015

Drillaby Overview

Drillaby is a fun kangaroo that helps children get excited about speech therapy. It is a game that helps kids practice sounds in therapy while having fun. It also assists parents, and teachers in continuing therapy at home. The speech therapy app is a game where you can earn stickers that helps the kangaroo get home from the tropical island. If they earn enough stars for the word or phrase practiced, they can get a virtual sticker to go in the book. The child can earn stickers by finding hidden words around the island and saying them correctly. The images are in plain sight so the child doesn’t have to look far. The sound effects are fun and Drillaby, the kangaroo is darling. Drillaby was developed by SLP Tech Tools. You might remember the recent app review, SLP TechTools Minimal Pairs. They were developed by the same company.

It can be tricky for parents to figure out how to continue therapy. I know I have struggled with this. A huge benefit to this app is that it allows parents to work at home with their child and send the “homework” or results to the therapist for tracking. Therapy can easily be continued at home. This game is a great way to make it easier for the parent and child.

How it Works

When you enter the app, you will fill out the childs’ information, choose what sounds you wish to work on, and press play. This app can work in 3 different accents: United States, United Kingdom, or Australia. You can choose between easy, medium, or hard words.

You can only choose one group of sounds for free. After that, you will have to pay for additional words with different sounds. Each in-app purchase or sound group costs $5.99. Because of that, you will want to choose carefully unless you are ready to purchase many more sound groups. If you are a therapist or teacher and want all of the sounds, you can purchase Drillaby Pro which makes all of the sounds available.

As the child searches and finds an image, they can click on it and the kangaroo will jump to the object and repeat a word that the child must say back. The child will say it three times. The therapist will choose the green or red button based on how the child does. If the child says the word correctly, you will hit the green button. If they need to try again or could do better, you will choose the red button.The Drillaby Remote app can help in gaining more control of the scoring but you can do it from the same iPad and just sit next to each other.As the child searches and finds an image,they can click on it and the kangaroo will jump to the object and repeat a word that the child must say back. The child will say it three times. The therapist will choose the green or red button based on how the child does. If the child says the word correctly, you will hit the green button. If they need to try again or could do better, you will choose the red button. The Drillaby Remote app can help in gaining more control of the scoring but you can do it from the same iPad and just sit next to each other.

Drillaby vs. Drillaby Pro and Drillaby Remote

Drillaby
The basic version of Drillaby is perfect for parents or in home therapists that only work with 1 child. Because there is only 1 sound group included in the basic version, it probably will not be as helpful to speech language pathologists and they should definitely upgrade to Drillaby Pro.

Drillaby Pro
Drillaby Pro includes all of the sound groups. Other than that it is the same to Drillaby. The sound groups would include: /k, g/ /t, p/ /sh, ch/ /v, f/ /l/ /s/ and /s/ blends.

Drillaby Remote
Drillaby Remote works with Drillaby and Drillaby Pro. It is a really cool addition to the apps because you can help the child remotely on another device. This makes it easier for the therapist or parent to control the session and score the child before they grade themselves. You can do it from a separate device in the same room. It just makes it so that the child can’t control their own grade. It costs .99 in the App Store.It uses blue tooth LE to automatically find and connect with a capable IOS player device. The linking happens automatically which is nice.

What’s Great About This App

Overall, I was very impressed with this app. I love that parents can use it at home with their child to continue speech therapy. I love that the results can be sent to a therapist and that easy collaboration between parent and therapist is possible with this game. I tried this app with my son and he was very willing to practice the words. I was impressed because he has refused to practice words and has lost interest easily before. I think kids will love the game and Drillaby, the Kangaroo. One improvement I would make is the option for custom words. My son loves certain subject matters and being able to add in words that would excite him even if they didn’t have an accompanying picture would be motivating. I also would love to see the ability to play with multiple people for groups sessions. Beyond that, The sound effects are really fun and engaging. The pictures and app navigation was easy. I would definitely recommend this app for children between the ages of 3-12. Be sure to enter the app giveaways on the Touch Autism Facebook page and download Drillaby in the App Store today! At the time of writing this review, Drillaby retailed for $5.99 in the app store.

SLP Tech Tools is the developer of this app. They have created apps that assist in school and therapy. They also have created apps that are used at home to practice what was taught in therapy sessions.

Buy Drillaby in the App Store

This app is a speech therapy game that helps kids practice sounds in therapy while having fun.