Therapy Skills on the Go: A comprehensive list of mobile apps to work on coping skills, organization, and social skills at home

By: Ben Flanagan, MSW, Rachel Piper, LLMSW, Dr. Suzi Naguib, Psy.D

You get home from your clinical therapy session, and one step in the door, reality kicks in. You have to get dinner ready for the kids, let the dog out, help with homework and finish your own projects all before bedtime. Now you try to recall what you learned at John’s therapy session earlier that evening, and it is a challenge to do amongst the busyness of the “real-world”. If this whirlwind of an evening resembles anything like your family’s weekly routine, kudos to you and your hardworking dedication. Not only do we appreciate what you do, but we also want to provide you with additional resources to help. In these lackluster moments, where life is moving at a thousand miles a minute, wouldn’t it be nice to have all of the tools and skills learned in clinical sessions at your fingertips? Furthermore, wouldn’t it be helpful to be able to apply these skills at home and school in an easily trackable, user-friendly manner? Of course it would!

Thousands of programmers and app-developers agree, as they have dedicated their work to creating mobile applications designed to help incorporate clinical skills into your daily life. The app-store can be an overwhelming place, so leave the cross-referencing and recommendation research to us. Below you will see some mobile applications that we recommend as additional resources, along with a comprehensive list of other helpful options with short descriptions highlighting their beneficial functions. Your phone is only an arms length away, and now so are coping strategies, organizational tips, visual prompts and social skill simulators for you and your family. Enjoy!

Highly Recommended Applications:

Smiling Mind (Mindfulness)
Smiling Mind is an app developed by a non-profit company and is based on its evidence-based guidelines regarding the benefits of practicing mindfulness. The benefits of practicing mindfulness through meditation include reducing stress and anxiety, while increasing energy, focus, relaxation and sleep, and productivity. Smiling Mind is unique, as it is FREE and has multiple specialized programs to accommodate for specific age-ranges. This app is  also used in educational, workplace and athletic settings and focuses on little-demand, but consistent practice of mindfulness coping skills. Its tracking capability is also helpful in providing you and your family with feedback and progress on your use of mindfulness skills. This app can be downloaded on Apple or Android devices and even comes in a web version that can be used on the computer. If you are seeking coping strategies to practice on the go, it is certainly worth exploring this app, considering their website is very well-designed and incredibly informative: https://www.smilingmind.com.au/

ChoreMonster (Behavior Management)
ChoreMonster is a user-friendly app that organizes chore-planning and rewards for your child in a clear format that is easy to navigate. This design makes chore completion and incentivisation very structured for your child, as well as visually instructive, which can help to increase children’s motivation to complete their chores more independently. It is also easy to use, saving you hours of work creating an elaborate physical behavior chart or related measures: https://www.choremonster.com/

Conversation Builder (Social Skills)
Conversation builder is an app to help individuals better understand and differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate social responses across a variety of social contexts. The app uses a multiple-choice format to help children identify the appropriate social response in each unique situation. When using the app, one can pre-select specific contexts including, but not limited to, how to handle bullying, sarcasm, sports, relationships, one-on-one conversations and group conversations. Furthermore, there are two separate applications for kids and teens. The app also allows the user to voice record their responses to situations, providing the opportunity to practice speech and receive audio feedback. The recorded conversations can even be saved to review later.

Habitica (Organizational Skills)
Habitica takes organization incentivization to another level. With its role-play gaming format, it allows individuals to earn points  by completing tasks to help level up their character and progress through a fantasy-themed game mode. Furthermore, the application provides monitored and user-friendly chat-rooms for online interactions with peers, centered around motivating each other to achieve their personal goals.

*Many of the apps listed above are specifically designed for IOS and are only available on apple products including iPhone/ iPad.