Bilingual Articulation Phonology Assessment (BAPA) Application: The First Standardized Speech Assessment App

Photo: smartyearsapps.com

I’m always looking for fun and creative ways to assess linguistically diverse individuals who may present with speech deficits. When it comes to standardized assessments, it can be tricky. Many individuals present with language difference that standardized assessments are not designed to detect.  As a result, many individuals who are culturally linguistically diverse appear to have deficits when in reality, they just communicate using different language productions.  Articulation assessments such as the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation are excellent for detecting speech sound disorders among monolingual students; however, I often find that they are difficult to use when assessing Spanish-speaking individuals.

Enter the Bilingual Articulation Phonology Assessment or the BAPA for short. Developed by Smarty Ears Apps, this app is extremely easy to use and efficient for speech therapists who work with individuals who present with articulation and phonological difficulties.  While some may stand by the administration of standardized assessments on paper, over time with the support of empirical evidence, standardized assessment apps may just be the wave of the future for SLPs.

While looking into assessment apps, I immediately became intrigued by a demo provided by the developers.  Now that I finally received the app and am able to review it (see below), I hope that this will help other SLPs looking for new assessment tools for Spanish-speaking individuals.

The BAPA was developed by Barbara Fernandes, Ellen Kester, Mary Bauman, and Scott Prath, and published by Smarty Ears. The BAPA can be used with individuals of all age groups. It is compatible with the iPad running iOS 5.1 or above.

Pros

Dialectal Difference Tool – This app can be customized depending