Comparison

ELS Autism | ABA Therapy vs ABA Play

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

ELS Autism | ABA Therapy

This app uses social narratives, picture schedules, and a token board to help neurodivergent children learn daily living skills and improve social interactions. It offers customizable tools like visual timers and first/then charts to support independence and manage transitions.

Highlights
  • Social narratives
  • Interactive picture schedules
  • Customizable schedules
  • First/Then chart
  • Token board with camera
  • Visual timer
Features
Read full description

Make routines, transitions, and daily tasks easier to understand with familiar visual supports to improve your children's social and life skills ELS Autism: ABA Therapy brings picture schedules, social narratives, a First/Then board, token rewards, and a visual timer together in one child-friendly app. Parents, caregivers, educators, and support professionals can use built-in activities or camera photos to create visual supports for home and school, to help neurodivergent children understand the steps for completing daily living skills with independence, and support children's social and life skills. VISUAL SUPPORTS IN ONE PLACE • Follow character-led social narratives featuring Kevin, Harper and Mateo to help learners practice and build everyday social skills. • Break everyday tasks into clear steps with picture schedules to gain independence in learning daily living skills. • Show what happens first and what comes next with a First/Then board to make expectations and transitions easier to understand. • Encourage task completion with a token board and chosen reward, helping you track progress over time. • Make waiting and transitions easier to follow with a visual timer, while supporting emotional regulation. • Add familiar task and reward photos with the device camera to personalize the token board and picture schedule according to your child’s needs. USE ELS FOR EVERYDAY ROUTINES Create visual supports for getting ready for school, brushing teeth, washing hands, bedtime, classroom tasks, waiting, homework, play, and moving between activities. FOR FAMILIES, EDUCATORS AND SUPPORT TEAMS ELS is designed to help families, teachers, special education teams and therapy professionals, as it's built on evidence-based ABA therapy, which comes with consistent visual support across home, school and community settings. MEET THE EXCEPTIONAL LEARNING SQUAD Kevin, Harper and Mateo guide learners through approachable stories about daily living skills, social situations and life skills. ELS is an easy-to-use educational visual-support tool. It does not diagnose autism or replace individualized guidance, therapy, or medical advice from a qualified professional. Instead, it can complement individualized supports by helping families and caregivers extend visual strategies into everyday routines and ELS is an easy-to-use educational visual-support tool. It does not diagnose autism or replace individualized guidance, therapy, or medical advice from a qualified professional. Instead, it complements individualized support by helping families and professionals extend visual strategies into everyday routines. https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

ABA Play

This educational app uses AI-generated content and data-driven teaching principles to create a customizable learning environment for early learners. It supports multiple profiles and includes autopilot modes for independent exploration, with on-device data tracking to monitor progress.

Highlights
  • Customizable learning environment
  • AI-generated images and voice prompts
  • Multiple learner profiles
  • Autopilot exploration modes
  • On-device local data tracking
Read full description

ABA Play is an educational tool designed around powerful learning principles. The goal of this app is to provide a fun and engaging playground with customizable learning delivered in a way that aligns with data driven teaching practices. The images and voice prompts included are AI generated, leveraging AI tools to democratize access to these resources for underserved children. It also serves as another opportunity for children to maintain and generalize skills. Features: - Deeply customizable learning environment designed to be accessible to a wide range of early learners - Multiple profiles for multiple learners - Autopilot modes for parents to allow learners to explore learning targets with guardrails to prevent overwhelming them - On-device local data tracking to assess learning and make changes to programming This application was built by a single developer and has many planned updates.

Screenshots

ELS Autism | ABA Therapy4 screens
ABA Play4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: ABA Play at 100% against ELS Autism | ABA Therapy's 50%. ABA Play also leads on rating (5.0 vs 3.0) and update cadence (every 5 days vs fortnightly). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. ELS Autism | ABA Therapy sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and ABA Play sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

ABA Play holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 3 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 50% of ELS Autism | ABA Therapy's written reviews are positive against 100% of ABA Play's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ELS Autism | ABA Therapy ships an update fortnightly, ABA Play every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on November 4, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
ELS Autism | ABA Therapy versus ABA Play: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterELS Autism | ABA TherapyABA Play
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.0 (2 ratings)5.0 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews50.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings23 — better
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.115.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size74 MB1.4 GB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperUnique Blue Heart ProductionsMATTHEW ODELL BLANEY

Customer experience

ELS Autism | ABA Therapy

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

ABA Play

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

ELS Autism | ABA Therapy

Subscriptions3
  • Family$1.991 Month
  • Therapy$5.991 Month
  • School$10.991 Month
3 purchases

ABA Play

One-time3
  • Full Access$9.99
  • Add 8 Additional Profiles$29.99
  • Upgraded Access AND 10 Profiles$39.99

Questions

Is ELS Autism | ABA Therapy free?
ELS Autism | ABA Therapy is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is ABA Play free?
ABA Play is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, ELS Autism | ABA Therapy or ABA Play?
ABA Play is rated higher. ELS Autism | ABA Therapy averages 3.0 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while ABA Play averages 5.0 from 3 ratings.
Do ELS Autism | ABA Therapy or ABA Play have ads?
Neither ELS Autism | ABA Therapy nor ABA Play shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ELS Autism | ABA Therapy or ABA Play?
ELS Autism | ABA Therapy ships an update fortnightly, and ABA Play every 5 days. Most recently, ELS Autism | ABA Therapy was updated on November 4, 2026 and ABA Play on October 31, 2026.

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