Describing Skills vs Keywords Understanding Lite
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Describing Skills
This app helps learners develop expressive language skills by providing step-by-step activities to describe objects, people, and events. It offers graduated practice, audio support, and progress reporting for up to 10 players. Designed to build confidence and communication abilities.
- Graduated practice for describing
- Audio support for readers
- Instant progress reporting
- Reward Center for motivation
- Extensive reporting for multiple players
- Incremental skill building
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Does your learner struggle with describing objects, people and events? These expressive language skills can be challenging for children with Autism/Aspergers and for adults with aphasia or other cognitive issues. The Describing Skills app provides step-by-step activities to quickly build the ability to describe objects, people and events in detail. What parents say about our awesome apps: *** 5 stars! Brilliant! An app that understands how kids actually learn. Thank you! *** 5 stars! My kids love this app because of the fun, silly sentences. I love it because it works! Describing Skills provides: - Graduated practice at describing objects, people and events. Skills are built one descriptor at a time and gradually combined until they can easily describe an item using 6-10 sentences. - Audio support for weak readers. - 'At a glance' reporting shows your child's progress instantly. The ability to verbalize and describe their world is vital for all learners. Whether it is describing an item they are looking for, recounting an incident that occurred to them, this app will ensure your learner has the ability to express their needs, concerns and interests. Other benefits: - FRUSTRATION FREE: Your learner builds skills incrementally and only progresses when mastery is shown. - REWARD CENTER: The fun and engaging Reward Center increases motivation. - EXTENSIVE REPORTING: for up to 10 players to suit the needs of parents, teachers and therapists. Please note: Except for very independent students, this app requires the support of a parent or therapist to evaluate a child's responses. Commit five minutes per day and you will see astounding progress! To evaluate the app, download the free version (this version), which has four free levels for a single player. Additional levels and additional players can be accessed with in-app purchases. If you prefer no in-app purchases, download the pay-to-download version of the app, which includes all levels and up to 10 players. We take customer service very seriously! If you ever have a problem or find that we've missed something, contact us at our website and we will do our best to fix the problem. We collect NO private information in our app. None! Our apps do not allow unrestricted web or social media access. We conform to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
Keywords Understanding Lite
This app offers a sample of speech and language therapy exercises focused on sentence comprehension. It helps users practice following directions, understanding basic concepts, and improving auditory and reading comprehension skills through interactive activities.
- Listening comprehension exercises
- Reading comprehension exercises
- Following directions (one/two-step, temporal, sequential)
- Basic concepts (size, color)
- Vocabulary understanding
- Sample of full app features
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Keywords Understanding LITE is a free version of Keyword Understanding. It gives you a sample of the content you would get in the full version. It allows you to see how the full version works and try it out for free. Keyword Understanding (the full app version) is a professional speech and language therapy app that works on sentence-level reading and listening comprehension. It also targets the understanding of vocabulary, basic concepts and the ability to follow directions of increasing keyword length. WHO IS KEYWORD UNDERSTANDING FOR? - Children with reduced attention and auditory processing difficulties - Children with language delay or disorder - Children with autism and language comprehension difficulties - Adults with aphasia and reading or spoken language comprehension difficulties after a stroke or traumatic brain injury - Adults with cognitive-communication difficulties due to stroke or brain injury WHAT LANGUAGE AREAS DOES KEYWORD UNDERSTANDING TARGET? FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS: Following directions is important in our everyday lives. In order to understand and follow directions, one needs a strong knowledge of basic concepts, vocabulary and the ability to process and retain spoken or written information in memory. BASIC CONCEPTS, ONE AND TWO STEP DIRECTIONS: Keyword Understanding works on the basic concepts of size and color as well as one and two-step directions of increasing length and difficulty e.g - “Touch the red balloon” - “Touch the small green umbrella” - “Touch the yellow chair and the blue candle” - “Touch the big pink cupcake and the small green glasses”. TEMPORAL DIRECTIONS (BEFORE/AFTER): Keyword Understanding includes Temporal Directions tasks that target the child or adult’s ability to follow directions that include the concepts 'Before/After' in a variety of positions in the sentence. e.g - “Before you touch the t-shirt, touch the phone” - “After you touch the lamp, touch the vase” - “Touch the flower before you touch the box” - “Touch the sock after you touch the bucket” SEQUENTIAL DIRECTIONS (FIRST…THEN): The app also includes Sequential Directions that target the child or adult’s ability to follow directions that include the concepts 'First ... Then' in the sentence. e.g - “First touch the ladder, then touch the bike”. FEATURES OF KEYWORDS UNDERSTANDING LITE This FREE version, Keywords Understanding LITE allows you to sample each activity in the full version but it only includes 6 objects. The FULL version includes many more allowing for much more variety in each activity and many more trials. The full version also allows you to select and deselect vocabulary items in the Word List. 3 modes: - Listening Comprehension (Audio Only): Match the spoken direction to the pictures - Reading Comprehension (Text Only): Match the written direction to the pictures - Listening and Reading Comprehension (Audio and Text): Match the spoken and written directions to the pictures - Bright, colorful, real-life photos of common objects - 6 objects in five different colors and sizes. The full version has a large variety allowing for thousands of possible following directions tasks - 3 trials in each activity. The full version allows for up to 50 trials per session. - A comprehension check activity to find out where comprehension breakdown occurs - Audio feedback for correct answers only, incorrect answers only or both - Graded tasks of increasing difficulty - User profiles and result history - Automatic tracking of scores - Optional results summary via email - iOS voices (automatically selected based on your region). Download an enhanced iOS voice for best quality. All Aptus Speech Therapy apps participate in the 50% off Volume Purchase Program, so you can buy in bulk at a discounted price. Are you looking for a different kind of speech therapy app? Check out our full range of speech and language therapy apps for adults and children on the AppStore or on our website.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Keywords Understanding Lite at 5.0 against Describing Skills's 2.0. Keywords Understanding Lite also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 3) and ratings volume (3 vs 1). Describing Skills's advantage is iOS requirement (12.2 vs 15.0). On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Describing Skills sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Keywords Understanding Lite asks for nothing beyond the download.
Keywords Understanding Lite holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 3 respectively.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 68 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Describing Skills | Keywords Understanding Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 68 months | Every 68 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.2 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 30 MB | 60 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Janine Toole | Aptus Speech and Language Therapy Limited |
Customer experience
Describing Skills
Keywords Understanding Lite
In-app purchases
Describing Skills
- Two Users$1.99
- Purchase All Levels$4.99
- 10 Users$4.99
Keywords Understanding Lite
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Describing Skills free?
Is Keywords Understanding Lite free?
Which has better reviews, Describing Skills or Keywords Understanding Lite?
Do Describing Skills or Keywords Understanding Lite have ads?
Which is updated more often, Describing Skills or Keywords Understanding Lite?
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