BIGMOUTH SOUNDS – kids speech sound app for iPhone iTouch and iPad 
We are all getting to grips with the latest technology. It’s everywhere we look. It’s giving usamazing power in our pockets. Kids especially appear to take to new gadgets like ducks to water.
Getting kids to practice work at home can be difficult, they often would rather play their computer games. So what if their homework was a game?
There are already over 500,000 apps available (www.apple.com). Specialist apps are being written to meet the needs of kids with all kinds of Speech and Language issues. Practice need never be dull!
My company Vox Aux is making specialist apps for people with speech and language problems.
Our first app to be released (Jan 2012) is “Bigmouth Sounds”.
Bigmouth Sounds is an app for kids learning their speech sounds. It can be used as a game for any child to play or with the guidance of a Therapist for kids attending therapy already.
It has been designed for children to be able to play by themselves with all the instructions spoken out loud. It has been developed from a system already in use within SLT clinics called Bigmouth Sound Pack, published in 1994, so we know it works.
Bigmouth is a little green cartoon character, he’s been called a ‘little green alien’ and a ‘monster’ and ‘egg-man’ by various children I’ve seen!
He helps in various ways to show how the sounds are made. He has colour change, size, a nose, and some objects that give special clues, and he has different mouth shapes for the sounds he makes.
Version 1 of this app lets children see, hear and learn the 36 character sounds, listen to them in fun sound-based stories and try to spot the different sounds in ‘snap’.
