What is the best app to help a child speak in sentences?

It depends on whether your child can speak at all. For a non-speaking child, a full AAC system like Proloquo2Go, set up with a speech-language pathologist. For a child who uses single words but does not combine them, a simpler picture board is enough — Help Me Talk includes one that speaks the assembled sentence and adds sound practice alongside it, for $39.99 a year on iPhone, iPad and Android.

At what age should a child speak in sentences?

Most children put two words together around two years old — "more juice", "daddy go" — and are using three- and four-word sentences by three. A child who is still using only single words at two and a half is worth a conversation with your doctor or a speech-language pathologist, and one who has lost words they previously used should be seen promptly.

Are picture boards bad for speech? Will my child stop trying to talk?

No. This is the most common worry parents raise and the research is consistent the other way: giving a child a reliable way to communicate is associated with more speech, not less, because communicating successfully is motivating. A board takes the pressure off the words while the words are still developing.

Is there a free sentence building app for kids?

Weave Chat AAC is free to download and the best-rated of the free boards, and Avaz AAC has a free tier. Both are good for finding out what your child responds to. Free boards tend to be weaker at keeping a vocabulary organised as it grows, which matters more the longer a child relies on it.

Can my child use their own photos as picture cards?

In Help Me Talk, yes — you can take a photo or pull one from your library and use it as a card, so the board holds your child's real cup, real dog and real grandmother. Children generally combine words about things they care about well before they do it about generic illustrations.

Does a sentence building app work on Android?

Help Me Talk does. Most of the established AAC systems — Proloquo2Go, TouchChat, LAMP Words For Life — are iPhone and iPad only, so Android narrows the field considerably. If you are on Android, see [our Android roundup](/best/best-speech-therapy-apps-for-android).

My child speaks in sentences but nobody understands them. Is this the right kind of app?

No — that is articulation, a different problem. Sentence building helps a child combine words; articulation practice fixes how the sounds inside those words are produced. For that, see [the best articulation apps](/best/best-articulation-apps-for-kids) or start free with [the sound pages](/sounds).

Roundup

Best sentence building apps for kids

A child who says "juice" but never "I want juice" is stuck at a specific, well-understood step, and it is one an app can genuinely help with. Tapping pictures in a row and hearing the sentence spoken back takes the hardest part off the child — holding several words in their head at once — and lets them hear what they meant to say. The apps below all do that. They differ enormously in who they are built for and what they cost.

The short answer

If your child cannot speak reliably at all, you need a full AAC system — Proloquo2Go ($249.99) is the best-reviewed, chosen with a speech-language pathologist. If your child has words but does not combine them, you do not need a $250 AAC system: Help Me Talk — our app — includes a picture board that builds and speaks the sentence, plus sound practice, for $39.99 a year across iPhone, iPad and Android. If you want to spend nothing while you work out which it is, Weave Chat AAC is free.

Two very different children, one search term

This matters more than any feature list, because picking from the wrong column wastes either hundreds of dollars or months of time.

	AAC — a voice, now	Sentence practice — words together, over time
The child	Cannot speak, or speech is unreliable	Speaks in single words, rarely combines them
What the app is for	Replacing speech so they can communicate today	Scaffolding the step from one word to two or three
Vocabulary size	Hundreds to thousands of symbols, structured for fast access	A working set the child and parent build together
Who sets it up	An SLP, after an AAC assessment	A parent, in an evening
Typical cost	$149.99–$299.99 once	$0–$60 a year
Examples	Proloquo2Go, TouchChat, LAMP Words For Life	Help Me Talk, Weave Chat, Avaz free tier

1. Proloquo2Go — if your child needs a voice

AssistiveWare's Proloquo2Go is the best-known AAC app there is, and the ratings back it up: 4.77 stars from nearly 12,000 US ratings, which is exceptional for a $249.99 app. It gives a non-speaking child a structured symbol vocabulary that speaks aloud, designed so that the words a child uses most are reachable in the fewest taps.

The price and the fact that it is iPhone and iPad only send a lot of people looking for alternatives. Before you do that, be sure you are actually replacing AAC — most of what comes up in that search does a different job. We wrote a whole page on that decision, and it sends plenty of readers back here.

The other systems an SLP may put in front of you are TouchChat HD at $149.99 and LAMP Words For Life at $299.99, both from Prentke Romich. All three are serious clinical tools, and all three work far better when a professional has helped configure the vocabulary.

Strong: the most proven AAC system for children, superb ratings, deep customisation
Weak: $249.99, Apple only, and genuinely overkill for a child who already talks
Choose it if: your child has no reliable way to tell you what they need

2. Help Me Talk — sentence board plus the sound practice

Our app. The Talk board is a grid of picture cards; your child taps the ones they want, the words line up in a tray along the bottom, and the app speaks the finished sentence aloud. Tapping "want", "more", "juice" produces a spoken sentence rather than three disconnected words — which is exactly the model a child needs to hear before they can produce it themselves.

Two details make it more useful than a generic board. You can add your own photographs as cards, so the vocabulary is your child's actual cup, your actual dog, their actual grandmother — children combine words about things they care about long before they do it about clip art. And on recent iPhones the sentence is assembled by Apple's on-device language model, so it comes out as real grammar rather than a robotic word list, without the words leaving the device.

The reason to pick it over a free board is that the same app also does the other half of the job: 30 guided sound lessons that listen to your child and score the attempt, and a daily plan that mixes the sentence work and the sound work automatically. The reason not to: it is not an AAC system. There is no clinical vocabulary organisation, no motor-planning layout, no SLP configuration. For a non-speaking child that is a real limitation, not a quibble.

$39.99 a year, on iPhone, iPad and Android.

Strong: speaks the assembled sentence, your own photos as cards, on-device sentence generation, and sound practice in the same app
Weak: not an AAC system — no clinical vocabulary structure, English only, 36 US ratings
Choose it if: your child has words and needs help putting them together

3. Weave Chat AAC — the strongest free option

Free to download, and at 4.67 stars from 491 US ratings it is the best-rated of the free AAC boards. If you are not yet sure whether your child needs full AAC or just a sentence scaffold, this is the cheapest possible way to find out — spend a fortnight with it before spending $249.99.

Free AAC apps generally trade away the things that matter at scale: vocabulary organisation that stays consistent as it grows, and the ability to move a configured system to a new device. Fine for evaluating, riskier as a long-term communication system for a child who depends on it.

4. Avaz AAC — a middle path

Free to download with paid tiers inside, 4.13 stars from 314 US ratings. Avaz has a real following among SLPs and sits sensibly between the free boards and the $250 systems. Worth a look if an assessment has told you AAC is the direction but the price of Proloquo2Go is the obstacle.

What to do tonight, whichever app you pick

The app is the smaller half of this. The technique below is what actually moves a child from one word to two, and it works with a $250 system, a free board, or a shoebox of photographs.

1Say back what they said, plus one word. They say "juice" — you say "want juice". Not a correction, not a demand to repeat it. Just the next size up, every time.
2Pause longer than is comfortable. Count five silently after you speak. Most adults fill the gap before the child has finished assembling their answer.
3Build the sentence on the board with them, not for them. Tap the first word, wait, let them find the second. The waiting is the practice.
4Set the board up around what they want. Snack, TV, the dog, going outside. Motivation does the work that drills cannot.
5Play the sentence back and act on it. If they build "more juice", they get more juice. A sentence that changes the world gets repeated; one that earns praise does not.

When to stop reading reviews and call someone

If your child is over two and a half and still using single words only, or if they had words and lost them, book an appointment rather than an app. Losing previously used words at any age is the one sign that should go straight to a professional. An assessment also tells you which of the two columns above you are actually in, which is the question every app on this page depends on.

Practice these sounds

Free word lists, mouth-position guides and games — no app needed.

S Sound M Sound B Sound P Sound

Questions parents ask

What is the best app to help a child speak in sentences?: It depends on whether your child can speak at all. For a non-speaking child, a full AAC system like Proloquo2Go, set up with a speech-language pathologist. For a child who uses single words but does not combine them, a simpler picture board is enough — Help Me Talk includes one that speaks the assembled sentence and adds sound practice alongside it, for $39.99 a year on iPhone, iPad and Android.
At what age should a child speak in sentences?: Most children put two words together around two years old — "more juice", "daddy go" — and are using three- and four-word sentences by three. A child who is still using only single words at two and a half is worth a conversation with your doctor or a speech-language pathologist, and one who has lost words they previously used should be seen promptly.
Are picture boards bad for speech? Will my child stop trying to talk?: No. This is the most common worry parents raise and the research is consistent the other way: giving a child a reliable way to communicate is associated with more speech, not less, because communicating successfully is motivating. A board takes the pressure off the words while the words are still developing.
Is there a free sentence building app for kids?: Weave Chat AAC is free to download and the best-rated of the free boards, and Avaz AAC has a free tier. Both are good for finding out what your child responds to. Free boards tend to be weaker at keeping a vocabulary organised as it grows, which matters more the longer a child relies on it.
Can my child use their own photos as picture cards?: In Help Me Talk, yes — you can take a photo or pull one from your library and use it as a card, so the board holds your child's real cup, real dog and real grandmother. Children generally combine words about things they care about well before they do it about generic illustrations.
Does a sentence building app work on Android?: Help Me Talk does. Most of the established AAC systems — Proloquo2Go, TouchChat, LAMP Words For Life — are iPhone and iPad only, so Android narrows the field considerably. If you are on Android, see [our Android roundup](/best/best-speech-therapy-apps-for-android).
My child speaks in sentences but nobody understands them. Is this the right kind of app?: No — that is articulation, a different problem. Sentence building helps a child combine words; articulation practice fixes how the sounds inside those words are produced. For that, see [the best articulation apps](/best/best-articulation-apps-for-kids) or start free with [the sound pages](/sounds).

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Last updated 6 August 2026.