SpeechEasy – An Assistive Device for Stuttering

Posted on November 14, 2011 by StutteringNews

From disabled-world.com

Information provided by Wendy Taormina-Weiss – Published: 2011-11-11

People who stutter want to be able to express their ideas, feelings, thoughts and more as freely as people who do not stutter.

They certainly deserve to have a voice that is heard by others, and a product known as, “SpeechEasy,” presents a potential solution to stuttering. SpeechEasy combines techniques and technologies that are proven and may be used to reduce stuttering while enhancing a person’s fluency.

SpeechEasy is a device; one that mimics the choral effect and pairs it with well-known, traditional fluency techniques, giving a person who stutters the confidence to say what they desire to at the time they want to say it. It is also a tool that assists with ensuring your message is heard. Your ideas and thoughts are no longer hidden from others when you use SpeechEasy. People who use the device find they are more confident in their communication, feeling freer to live their lives.

To look at the SpeechEasy device it seems very similar to a hearing aid.

There is a very real difference between the SpeechEasy and a hearing aid though. Instead of amplifying sound, the device alters sounds that enter it so people who stutter can hear their voice with a slight time delay, as well as at a different pitch. The reason for the delay and change in pitch is to re-create something known as the, “choral effect,” a natural phenomenon.

The choral effect happens when a person’s stutter is greatly reduced or entirely eliminated when they speak or sing along with other people. The choral effect is something that has been well documented over decades of time. The SpeechEasy device uses the choral effect and is a small and wearable device people can use every day.

The device has four different models, giving people the opportunity to choose one that works best for them. The device can be obtained through a SpeechEasy provider who works with people to help them decide which model is the best one for them. The device has a warranty period of a year against any defects in the product. If you decide you don’t like it – no problem; there is a sixty-day trial period. The trial period is there so you can decide if it is working for you.

Image of SpeechEasy models

 

Continue reading here.

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SpeechEasy Newsletter: November 2011

Posted on November 1, 2011 by StutteringNews

The November edition of the SpeechEasy Newsletter is now available for viewing on the web. Click here to read it.

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Stutterer Finds Her Voice Via YouTube

Posted on October 24, 2011 by StutteringNews

From newamericanmedia.org

I used to think the universe had a vendetta against me. While I had been born with the wonderful ability to write at a young age, I had been cursed with the inability to speak.

At some point during my stint in elementary school I discovered I had developed a recurring stutter. I honestly thought it was a phase that had to do with my overactive brain and my mouth just couldn’t keep up with it all. This eventually instilled in me a deep dislike for public speaking, the same way I disliked long division. I had hoped my stutter was a phase that would eventually go away.

But the phase didn’t phase-out.

The stigma of stuttering — as described in a New York Times piece from earlier this month — is literally a social battle of one against the world.

From my experience, on the hierarchy of disabilities, stuttering falls under the class of approved social mockery. It becomes the cheap shot in sitcoms and while movies like The King’s Speechmade audiences swoon for the struggling, stuttering King, the rest of us who fumble over saying the “CH” in cheese pizza or the “MO” in Mocha at Starbucks get mercilessly snickered at.

In the New York Times piece, 16-year-old Philip Garber’s stutter allegedly resulted in his teacher asking him to hold his questions until after class so as to not waste the time of his fellow students.

In a follow-up New York Times piece, Garber’s teacher explained that her encounter with Garber was a misunderstanding, adding that she had no intention to “silence his voice” and that she had reached out to a speech therapist in regard to the situation.

Unfortunately, that misunderstanding hints at a much deeper and more complex issue involving the way classrooms are structured to work with students like Garber.

Read the full story here.

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“Stutterer Speaks Up in Class; His Professor Says Keep Quiet”

Posted on October 11, 2011 by StutteringNews

From the NY Times

RANDOLPH, N.J. — As his history class at the County College of Morris here discussed exploration of the New World, Philip Garber Jr. raised his hand, hoping to ask why China’s 15th-century explorers, who traveled as far as Africa, had not also reached North America.

He kept his hand aloft for much of the 75-minute session, but the professor did not call on him. She had already told him not to speak in class.

Philip, a precocious and confident 16-year-old who is taking two college classes this semester, has a lot to say but also a profound stutter that makes talking difficult, and talking quickly impossible. After the first couple of class sessions, in which he participated actively, the professor, an adjunct named Elizabeth Snyder, sent him an e-mail asking that he pose questions before or after class, “so we do not infringe on other students’ time.”

As for questions she asks in class, Ms. Snyder suggested, “I believe it would be better for everyone if you kept a sheet of paper on your desk and wrote down the answers.”

Later, he said, she told him, “Your speaking is disruptive.”

Read the full story here.

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SpeechEasy Newsletter: October 2011

Posted on October 3, 2011 by StutteringNews

The October edition of the SpeechEasy Newsletter is now available for viewing on the web. Click here to read it.

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“I don’t stutter at all if I’m singing”

Posted on September 27, 2011 by StutteringNews

From the OxfordMail article: “I don’t stutter at all if I’m singing”

Unipart worker Chris Charlesworth turned to music to help him cope with a stutter he has had since he was eight.

When the 52-year-old sings, his words flow with no unwelcome interruptions.

But now the father-of-two has won plaudits for his music and song-writing at a national competition.

There were 6,000 entries in the UK Songwriting Contest and five of his 12 songs came in the top 20 per cent, with scores of seven or eight out of 10 from top music producers Richard Niles, Stuart Ebbs and Simon Ellis.

Mr Charlesworth said: “I have suffered a stutter since the age of eight and my grandfather also suffered from one, so it may be the condition has been inherited.”

“Some people say that stutters begin during childhood if children have an unhappy time but that certainly wasn’t the case for me.”

“Scientists have been doing research on stuttering for about 200 years and they still don’t have all the answers.”

“I like to perform my songs as often as I can because when I sing on stage the words flow freely and I don’t have a problem with my stutter at all.”

Read the full story here.

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‘The King’s Speech’ Features Stuttering Foundation PSA

Posted on September 21, 2011 by StutteringNews

From The Stuttering Foundation article:

The King’s Speech Features Stuttering Foundation PSA

While the Oscar-winning movie The King’s Speech is universally treasured by the stuttering community, there is a hidden gem on the DVD and Blu-ray editions released in mid-April.

A 60-second public service announcement (PSA) created by the Stuttering Foundation is included in the “Special Features” section of the DVD and Blue-ray release. The PSA features children who stutter sharing their own experiences with stuttering and treatment, and offers assistance through the foundations website and toll-free hotline.

“We’ve been stunned by the tremendous response to the public service announcement from viewers across the country looking for help with stuttering,” said Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation.

“Inclusion of our PSA on the DVD is so marvelous for our cause.”

“We hope a copy of The King’s Speech DVD, including our video, will end up in the home of every person who stutters, every speech therapist’s office, every school counselor’s desk and every university speech-language course professor’s briefcase,” Fraser said. “It is a story worth seeing over and over again for years to come.”

*Article from The Stuttering Foundation’s Fall 2011 Newsletter.

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WKU student blogs to overcome speech impediment

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Admin

From the WKU Herald Article:

Rachel Hoge has a lot to say, but she sometimes has a difficult time expressing herself.

The sophomore from Springfield, Tenn., grew up with a speech impediment and took speech classes to help her stutter.

Hoge said her stuttering, a communication disorder that disrupts the flow of speech, is “like being stuck inside your own mind.”

The disorder makes it hard for even the people Hoge loves to understand her or know how to approach her.

But Hoge found a solution through writing when she started a blog called “The Untamed Tongue” in order to help those who stutter and those who don’t to better understand the disorder.

In her blog, Hoge writes about what stuttering is, how it happens, how it makes her feel and how it affects her life. She also addresses her entries to others with a stutter, trying to encourage them and help make things better.

Read the full story here.

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SpeechEasy Newsletter: September 2011

Posted on September 6, 2011 by StutteringNews

The September edition of the SpeechEasy Newsletter is now available for viewing on the web. Click here to read it.

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The brains of people who have stammered since childhood show evidence of ‘rewiring’ between the left and right brain

Posted on August 18, 2011 by StutteringNews

From The Daily Mail article:

The scientists used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to interfere temporarily with brain activity during the experiment.

TMS is a non-invasive method of interrupting the activity of neurons which allows scientists to study the functioning and interconnections of the brain.

In control subjects, disturbing the left premotor cortex with TMS impaired the finger tapping, but disturbing the right premotor cortex had no effect.

But in stuttering adults, the pattern was reversed. In other words the accuracy of finger tapping was affected by disturbing the right hemisphere, and unaffected when disturbing the left.

Thus, in the brains of adults who stutter there appears to be a profound reorganization, possibly compensating for subtle brain disturbances in other parts of the brain.

The team claims that this experiment provides further evidence that in adults who have stuttered since childhood, the processes of auditory-motor integration are located in a different part of the brain to those in adults who do not stutter.

Read the full story here.

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