Review: Articulation Station Hive for SLPs

 

You may have already heard the buzz around the Articulation Station Hive app by Little Bee Speech. Here's an honest review of the pros and cons I've seen during the BETA testing phase. 

WHAT IS ARTICULATION STATION HIVE?

Articulation Station Hive is a one-stop-shop app for articulation needs, created by Little Bee Speech. It's an upgraded version of the original app, Articulation Station, which has been a favorite of mine for many years. 

HOW DOES PRICING WORK?

Little Bee Speech is launching this app as a subscription-based service instead of their usual one-time purchase. The cost is approximately $120/year billed yearly (or $15.99/month billed monthly). It will include a free 7-day trial and, according to the Little Bee website, more apps will be included in the subscription as time passes. 

Unfortunately, this means for many of us, we will not be able to purchase this using school funds. Many districts, mine included, have a strict policy on subscription-based services, which includes both websites and apps. For example, at my current district, I cannot be reimbursed for a subscription unless it's available for all SLPs. This being said, unless the district approves this app subscription for all SLPs across my district, I will be paying out of pocket. Don't get me wrong, this app is great, but the pricing doesn't match up to my personal budget on what I am willing to spend yearly out of pocket for an app. One-time purchases tend to be the most practical and beneficial for many school-based SLPs.

See the full comparison and pricing structure on their blog.

WHAT ARE THE BEST FEATURES?

One of the best features of this new app is the sheer amount of levels and activities that are included. This is a major upgrade from the previous version of Articulation Station. Now included are levels for isolation and conversation, as well as updated activities within the levels that were previously included (syllables, words, phrases, sentences, and stories). 

The new levels allow for more students to effectively use this app. Previously, the original Articulation Station app started at the word level, which meant some speech students (working on isolation and syllable level) were missing out on group participation using the app, as well as those working on conversational speech tasks. Now, they're easily included in group activities with the app. 

Additionally, my students have already excitedly commented on seeing new words in their target word list and having new sentences to practice, so I'm glad to see more and/or updated words included on the word lists for each sound. 

Another feature I'm impressed with is the data collection page. Now you can see graphed data on your student dashboard. This is a simplified way to visually track progress. You can sort the graph by all sounds or specific targets. That being said, I especially appreciate that I'm able to see the scores of my /r/ students graphed by variation (i.e. /ear/, /ar/, /ire/, etc.). This makes planning for my next session a breeze because I can easily see which sound (or variation of a sound) needs the most work. The improved data profiles are a huge selling point.

See a complete video on the features on Little Bee's YouTube channel.

WHERE CAN I PURCHASE ARTICULATION STATION HIVE?

Articulation Station Hive will be available on the Apple app store on 01/05/2022 and will include a free 7-day trial.

What are your thoughts on the new app? Sound off in the comments!

Note: Please know that I was a Beta Tester for this app and received it for free for a brief period of time. However, this blog post was not sponsored by Little Bee Speech.