In this article
Social skills are essential for building meaningful relationships and navigating social interactions successfully. We’ve selected a few critical social skills apps that should be in every speech and language pathologist’s arsenal to help their young patients grow these critical skills.
Mastering social communication involves many skills that children need to learn and develop such as :
- role-playing,
- taking turns,
- understanding nonverbal cues,
- perspective-taking, and
- emotional regulation
Social skills learning starts early in life and continue until early adulthood but pre-school and primary school years are foundational to the development.
Here is our list of top social skills apps:
Touch and Learn Emotions Empathy Skills App
Apple Store Rating:
Overview:
Identifying emotions in one’s self and in others is a critical Social skills for communication.
Touch and Learn is a powerful social skills app and a new gaming platform that allows you to introduce new concepts in a fun and exciting new way.
This Social Skill app focused on helping kids read body language and understand emotions by looking at gorgeous pictures and figuring out which person is expressing a given emotion.
Age Range: 3 to 6 years old
Skills: Body language, Emotions
Price: 1.99 US$
Chatter Labs Social Skills Development App
Overview:
Life Adventures and Social Detective are board game–style experiences designed to help children and adults connect through play. In a low-prep, low-pressure format, families explore everyday scenarios, unpack emotions, and discuss different ways to respond.
Created for busy families, these games make it easy to talk through real-life situations. Children build awareness of their emotions and choices in fast-moving moments – so they feel more confident and empowered to handle them.
Includes printable social scripts.
Age Range: 4 to 8 years old
Availability:any device
Price: free tier, 12.49 US $ per month
SignupInference Pictures App by Aptus Health
Apple Store Rating:
Overview: “Inference Pics” is a social skill app designed to teach children, teens, and adults with autism and/or social communication difficulties to make inferences using pictures.
SLPs can choose from over 300 inference pictures in seven different inference activities in this inferencing skill app.
Age Range: 6 to 12 years old
Skills: Body language, Conversation, Inference
Price: 19.99 US$
Conversation Skills & Conversation Planner Social Pragmatic Skills Apps
Apple Store Rating:
Overview: Conversation social skill apps are designed to help children with autism spectrum disorder practice key steps in conversation. These social skills apps:
- Helps children understand and identify what their friends are interested in.
- Aids children in selecting a suitable topic for conversation.
- Guides children to understand the ongoing topic of a conversation.
Conversation apps is a “Mom’s Choice Award Winner” and are features on FunEducationalApps.com, TeachersWithApps.com
Age Range: 9-11 yrs
Skills: Friendship, Conversation
Availability: Super Social Skills Bundle of 6 apps available on iPhone & iPad.
Price: From 11.99$ per app and bundle of 6 apps at 48.99$
Between the Lines Level 1 HD Social Skills App
Apple Store Rating:
Overview: This social skill app is designed for elementary students and up, who would benefit from practice interpreting vocal intonation, facial expressions, perspective-taking, body language, and idiomatic or slang expressions. The app uses real photographs, voices, and short mini-video clips of a variety of social situations and expressions.
Age Range: 9-11 years old
Skills: Inference, Body language, Tone of voice, Conversation skills, Idioms and figurative language.
Availability:iPad
Price: 19.99 US$
Empathy Social Skills App by Aptus Health
Apple Store Rating:
Overview: “Empathy Pics” social skills app helps older children, teenagers, and adults with autism and social communication difficulties to develop social awareness and understanding.
Age Range: 9-16 years old
Skills: Friendship, Conversation
Price: 12.99 US$
Frequently Asked Questions
Apps work well for teaching foundational skills like emotion recognition, turn-taking, perspective-taking, conversation scripts, and social problem-solving. They're particularly useful for repeated, low-pressure practice of scenarios that are harder to engineer in real life.
Many of the apps featured were specifically designed with autistic children in mind, offering structured scenarios, visual supports, and clear rule-based social learning. That said, app use should always complement — not replace — direct social interaction and therapy.
Most apps are designed for ages 4–12, with simpler emotion-recognition and turn-taking apps suitable for preschoolers and more nuanced social scenario apps better for school-age children.
10–20 minutes of focused, guided app use is typically more effective than longer unstructured sessions. Discussing what happened in the app afterward — "What should that character have said?" — significantly increases the learning benefit.
Yes. Several apps in the guide are designed for both clinical and home use, with therapist and parent modes. Some include progress tracking that an SLP can review to guide session planning.
How Chatter Labs compares
For this category, Chatter Labs is a top contender — purpose-built by speech and language therapists to extend consistent practice beyond the session, with assignable games and built-in progress tracking.
| Feature | Chatter Labs | Typical alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| No prep required | ✓ Yes | Varies by tool |
| Assignable games & worksheets | ✓ Yes | Varies by tool |
| Built-in progress tracking | ✓ Yes | Varies by tool |
| Designed by speech & language therapists | ✓ Yes | Varies by tool |
| Free plan available | ✓ Yes | Varies by tool |
| Works across home & school | ✓ Yes | Varies by tool |
Feature availability for other tools varies — check each provider for current specifics. This comparison reflects Chatter Labs’ core capabilities.
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Last modified: 16 June 2026