About this app

Achieve educational milestones with our award-winning app designed for speech and language development. An invaluable app for visual learners that is adaptable to children’s individual needs and abilities.

Children, parents, teachers and professionals in 100+ countries and 27+ languages are using Special Words to turn screen time into an active and engaging learning experience.


Areas of Development
• Enhance communication, language and literacy skills
• Increase sight-word vocabulary
• Encourage listening and speaking skills
• Develop hand-eye coordination
• Improve fine motor skills


Personalize to Suit Abilities
• Use your own text and photos to harness interests and personalize activities
• Include your voice or audio to bring the learning experience to life
• Create word lists tailored to children’s learning needs
• Adjustable animation speed to suit abilities and concentration levels
• Activities adaptable to any developmental stage and for adults with learning difficulties and memory impairment
• Can be fully customized to grow with a child as they develop


Share Your Words
• Copy content to and from the app on another device
• Exchange word lists using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Dropbox, Google Drive or email
• Transfer content to and from our Special Stories app to extend the learning process


Accessible For All
• Support for switch users
• Choice of fonts, plus a large text option to support those with visual impairments and dyslexia
• Use at home, school, in speech or occupational therapy sessions, and for home schooling to follow the curriculum and enhance learning
• Proven to be accessible and hold the attention of children with a variety of abilities and skill sets
• Compatible with Android tablets and phones, and Chromebooks


Differences between Special Words and Special Words Pro
For teachers and speech & language professionals, the professional edition (Special Words Pro) includes extra features not in the standard edition (Special Words):
• Printable PDF assessment sheets
• Printable cards to use in paper-based activities
• Free access to curriculum-related content
• Dual control using external keyboard


Speak Your Language
• Special Words includes 96 pictures, spoken words and written text in 27 languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Dutch, English (American, British and Australian), Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Welsh
• All languages use audio provided from native speakers
• Replace words and re-record audio in any other language your child uses


Why Our Apps Are Different
• Visually clear and simple, with no distracting backgrounds or noises
• Tested and recommended by Down syndrome and ASD experts and organisations around the world
• No in-app purchases, pop-up ads or user tracking
• Developed in collaboration with parents, professionals and teachers of children with special educational needs


Part of the Special iApps Family
Special iApps is a multi-award-winning non-profit social enterprise with a worldwide reputation for creating educational apps for those with learning disabilities and additional needs, as well as in early years education. They initially created apps to teach their youngest son William, who has Down syndrome and autism, now they support children internationally.

Discover more of our apps on Google Play or visit www.specialiapps.org.

New features

• Compatible with Android 11
• Bug fixes