Universally compatible with
all Apple devices
Speech With Milo
Forget about your autistic son's speech therapist. Start doing speech therapy with Milo instead! OK, I'm just kidding. Milo isn't a licensed SLP (Speech Language Therapist), he's just a very helpful little mouse that appears within this app to demonstrate actions. Speech with Milo is an incredible app for speech and language. It's also incredibly cute. The music is cute. The voice used in the app is cute. And, of course, Milo is absolutely adorable. Plus, this autism app is ideal for both the iPhone and iPod Touch as well as the iPad.
Most, if not all, of the other available speech app's are intended to help with speech only, not necessarily language development. The difference? In layman's terms, speech is how we pronounce words and sounds, while language is putting sentences together. Speech With Milo is an app that's geared toward language development.
Milo is the star and he gets your (and your kid's) attention right off the bat. You touch little Milo to begin, as the app instructs you to do. Then the screen shifts to one of three scenes; a living room, beach, or stage with Milo in center screen. He immediately stares at his wrist watch while tapping one foot with impatience, waiting for you to gently touch him so he can demonstrate an action verb for you. When you tap Milo a verb is displayed on the bottom of the screen and it's simultaneously spoken while Milo does his thing. When he finishes the action, shown with a short cute animation, he says, "Tada!". It's a very cute thing to see. (On a side note; I don't remember ever using the word 'cute' so many times in an autism app review.)
After he does his thing Milo is content to stand still. You are now given buttons to go onto the next verb, hear an appropriate phrase based on Milo's actions with the current verb, or to go back.
Speech With Milo uses over 100 different verbs. You can customize which verbs the app uses. You can also turn off the background music and turn off the word from being spoken. And directly on the opening screen you are presented with buttons that take you to either parent instructions or therapist instructions. Nice! You can't go wrong with this app and little Milo keeps children interested, motivated, and involved!
Periodically, Milo asks for a break. Wow! Understand the importance of this? By building this into Speech With Milo it's helping to teach kids, like my son with autism, to ask for a break instead of acting out or having a fit. That's great! During these breaks Milo says he's hungry and asks for some cheese. Your child can touch the cheese and drag it to Milo's mouth. He devours it and then does a little dance for you, disco ball overhead.
Although this is a fantastic autism app as-is, I have some suggestions for improvement. First, it's a bit strange to see Milo rowing a boat on stage or baking in the living room, but I doubt that's a distraction for children. Though the app did crash on me once and freeze up after prolonged use.
As I've said about most other app's for children, I think all settings should be in the iPhone's own settings area so kids are less likely to tamper with them. Also, I'd like to swipe left or right in order to go forward or back; no need for the buttons. I feel the same about the 'Phrase' and 'Home' buttons that are shown on each screen. How 'bout touch and hold on Milo to hear the phrase? How 'bout a double or triple-tap to return home? That way it's not so easy for my son to return to the home screen accidentally or intentionally where he gets quick access to Milo's settings.
Doonan Speech Therapy, the developer, offers versions of Milo for working on prepositions, adjectives, and sequencing as well. All of them look to be every bit as good as this one!
As I stated, Speech with Milo is fantastic. If all my suggested improvements were implemented this app would be super-fantastic! It's a great tool for parents and professionals alike. I strongly suggest you don't pass it up!
