It may be summer in the US but in our part of the globe, it’s been raining oceans.  iSPeak App is back, and this time, we’ve just finished taking Smarty Ears‘ Adjective Remix for a long, thorough circuit among our kids at the clinic.  Released last June 2012, Adjective Remix comes packed with 200 adjectives and around 400 pictures.  Smarty Ears has certainly put together an app that makes any therapy session a fun and interactive one while learning adjectives.

The main screen shows the user:

• Quick Start at the bottom left of the screen, enabling any user to start the lesson right away sans tweaking
• Report Cards and Select Students grace the bottom right of the screen:
  • Select Students allows the user to add a student, take the child’s picture and tag it with a name.  Select one or more players–again, one or MORE players (!)–and click the Start button to begin the game.
  • Report Cardsleads the user to the student selection screen where, after choosing a student, shows a second screen with:
    • date of app usage
    • accuracy of answers in percent
    • adjectives played and how many percent of these the has child mastered
    • adjectives that have not been played
• the Settings button is located on the top right, where one can choose
  • Display Text at the top of the screen
  • what happens when the answer is incorrect (When Wrong):  game moves on, the child is alerted with an audio signal, or app won’t respond at all)
  • the Presentation of Items, if these will be presented on random or in order
• the Concepts Targeted, and the adjectives are grouped into:the Support button, where one can post to Facebook, access the video tutorial, contact the app developers, or share news about the app to a friend
  • Appearance (soft, new, long)
  • Colors
  • Feelings
  • Quantity (few, empty)
  • Shape (thick, curved)
  • Size
  • Time (old, modern)
  • Touch and Taste (nutritious, hot, dry)

After customizing our preferred targets and selecting our student/s, we started the lesson proper and we were pleased with:

• the quality of the pictures:  these are pictures, not drawings.  Sharp, clear pictures!
• the target word is in boldface:  one can see this as long as the Display Text is toggled on
• the picture of the child on the top left of the screen: useful especially if one uses the 2+ players option
• comes with pre-installed avatars for those who do not want to use their clients’ pictures.  One can also skip using a picture / avatar altogether.
• the brief yet rewarding visuals in the form of a “Well Done!” stamp that comes out following each correct answer
• the fact that how the app responds to wrong answers can be customized (the app does not respond and moves on to the next picture, the current screen stays until the correct answer is tapped, and gives a beep for every wrong answer)
• the Next and Stop buttons, which basically allows the user to move on the next picture without necessarily answering the present question, and Stop to conclude the session altogether
• the customizability of the app:  one can choose which adjectives to include in the lesson, opt to create student lists, and view their “report cards.”
• the Report Card:  not only does it give the percentage of correct answers PER adjective, it also gives one an idea which specific adjectives the child needs to work on vs. those he has already mastered.

What we would like to suggest as adjustments are:

• a volume boost:  we’ve put our iPad at the highest volume settings (both via the rocker button and via Settings), and we still couldn’t hear the app’s voice well enough.  This is crucial because not everyone will opt to have the app display text above the picture
• a Clear Results button on the Report Card:  our experimentations led us to a Report Card with a lot of Not Played tags, which made us realize that it would be nice if a user can opt to delete certain therapy session dates.  Until that happens, it looks like one needs to create a new Student (and Report Card) in order to reset accuracy ratings

It is also worth noting that this app is literally no lightweight.  Packing 216mb worth of data, you may want to double check how much space you have left in your device (and if have a  reliable and fast Internet connection) before purchasing this.

Since Adjective Remix was a hit among our kids, we can definitely say that Smarty Ears has apparently done a lot in order to deliver a tight app package that features a level of customizability rarely found in therapy apps.  At $9.99, this one’s a solid investment into the techie SLP’s app arsenal.