New Technology Gives those without Speech the Gift of Their Own Voice

Samantha Grimaldo shown above courtesy of NPRSamantha Grimaldo, born with a rare disorder called Perisylvian syndrome, lost her ability to speak and has always needed to carry a machine to do the talking for her. She types in what she wants to say and the device repeats those words out loud. Even though the voice device nowadays is much smaller and portable, Samantha doesn’t like the sound of the voice that speaks for her. “Because it’s weird and older. I don’t want people to hear,” says 17-year-old Samantha.

Fortunately, Rupal Patel, a speech scientist at Northeastern University, is on a mission to individualize voices for the speaking device. She has asked kids with speech disorders to come into her lab and make a throaty “ahhhhh” sound. She records the sound, runs it through the computer and analyzes its inherent characteristics. “We can determine their pitch, the loudness, the breathiness of their voice, and the changes in clarity,” Patel says. Rupal Patel, Speech Scientist at Northeastern University, shown above (photo from NPR) Next, she takes the recording of a similar voice and combines it with the pitch, breathiness and other determined characteristics to create a unique voice for each individual. Samantha is one of the first to experience this new technology and it turns out that her voice is clear, light, and definitely one of a young girl her age.

Check out the following link to read or listen to this story as reported on National Public Radio News: "New Voices for the Voiceless: Synthetic Speech Gets an Upgrade," by Alex Spiegel