Tactus Therapy apps are known mostly for their adult rehab therapy apps. Last week Megan contacted me to review their app targeting semantic categories, Category TherAppy. The app is appropriate for both adults and children.
When you open the app start by pressing the setting tab, and turning it into child-friendly mode. While you’re there, make any changes to how the information is presented.
The app contains 4 different category activities: Find, Classify, Exclude, and Add One. 
In the Find it game, select the categories you want to include, then click the arrow. A screen will present the category name and say, “Touch the form of transportation.” The student selects the correct answer by clicking on it. Data is kept throughout and visible on the top of the screen.
The Classify activity asks the child, “Which category does this belong to?”
The Exclude activity, asks the child to identify which picture doesn’t belong. If needed, the student can click on the ‘hint’ button, to see the category name.
In the Add One activity, children are given 3 pictures and asked to identify which picture ‘goes with the others.’
You can change difficulty level (concrete, sub, abstract). The above pictures show categories for each level in the child-friendly setting, to give you an idea of what the difficulty levels are. Pros: Category TherAppy uses a simple framework that is ideal for children with language disorders, multiple disabilities or ASD. Although other apps might have visual appeal for neurotypical brains, this plain white background it ideal for the special needs population. I appreciate the leveled categories which allow me to use the app with everyone from preschool to 5th grade on my school caseload.
Cons: While the app collects data during each session which can be emailed, there is no way to add student names and track data over time.
The app is available for $14.99 in the iTunes store. Tactus Therapy wants to give one SLP a free copy! Enter via rafflecopter below! a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclaimer Statement: A free copy of this app was provided to SRN for review. No other compensation was provided. The opinions expressed are solely the reviewers and were not influenced by the developer.
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I have quite of few students working on defining words and this would work well for them!
I am not a speech therapist but I love using your programs for my ESL students and students that do not qualify for speech services.
I would try it with several of the kids I see for language therapy. -Cassandra
I would use it with clients with aphasia.
aphasia clients as well as students with word-retrieval deficits
I would use this for my ASD students.
I would use it with my students working on rapid naming and word finding
This would work great with my kids working on categories and describing objects.
My students with language goals!
Looks like a useful app
This looks like a good app. I’ve used the lite versions of some of their other apps so far. I am a school and LTC SLP, so I would use this app across the age span.
I could really use this with my students with language goals!
The app looks useful for all of my language students!
I would use this with my language impaired students as well.
This app looks like it’d be great for some of my students to work on more complex categories.
I love the Tactus apps and would love to win this one to use with my speech kiddos! 🙂
I would use this app with my severe language students who have word finding difficulties and low vocabulary. It looks great for those kiddos who need visuals since they are not reading yet!
This looks like another great app! I can’t think of a student on my caseload who I WOULDN’T use this app with!
I had a couple of preschool students in mind before I ever saw your post! Yay!!! Thanks for sharing your ideas!
I would use this with my students working on identifying category members and identifying items that do not belong in a given category.
I have several elementary aged student who are working on categorization skills and they love my iPad. This app would be wonderful.
I would use this app with my younger peeps to work on categories as well as with my older expressive language kiddos who need to work on sentence structure and word finding. 🙂
I love tactus therapy apps! I use their naming app a lot with my home health pts.
I’m an SLP with a large ELL pop. I wondered if you have more EET ideas for grades 3-5? I got good mileage using angry birds EET.
My students at school.
I have so many kiddos to use this app with at school! They need a new way to work on categories
I have a ton of elementary student that need work on categories!!
I would use this with elementary and intermediate school children I work with. Thanks for the opportunity.
One of the folks I would use it with is a women in her 50s who has Down Syndrome.
I WOULD USE THIS WITH MY LANGUAGE KIDS–SO MANY ARE WORKING ON CATEGORIES!
I would use this with a lot of my kids, especially the students working on defining words, categorizing items, and word relationships.
I would use the app with many different kids I have that are working on categories in therapy from Kindergarten to middle school!
I would use this for my language kids. I have so many working on categories.