Speech Generating Device: Fundamentals and Applications

By Fouad Sabry

What Is Speech Generating Device

Speech-generating devices (SGDs), also known as voice output communication aides, are electronic augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems designed to complement or substitute speech or writing for individuals with severe speech impairments, enabling them to vocally communicate. Another name for SGDs is voice output communication aids. SGDs are essential for individuals who have limited means of verbal engagement because they enable individuals to become active participants in communication interactions. Because of this, SGDs are significant for individuals who have limited means of verbal interaction. They are of great benefit to adults diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but in recent years they have also been utilized for youngsters who have been diagnosed with expected speech deficits.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Speech generating device

Chapter 2: Assistive technology

Chapter 3: Augmentative and alternative communication

Chapter 4: Computer accessibility

Chapter 5: Screen reader

Chapter 6: Speech and language impairment

Chapter 7: Partner-assisted scanning

Chapter 8: Semantic compaction

Chapter 9: Switch access scanning

Chapter 10: Lightwriter

(II) Answering the public top questions about speech generating device.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of speech generating device in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of speech generating device' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of speech generating device.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jul 4, 2023

Book preview

Chapter 1: Speech-generating device

People with severe speech impairments can use speech-generating devices (SGDs), also called voice output communication aids, as an electronic augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system to supplement or replace speech or writing.

Multiple input and display options make SGDs accessible to people with a wide range of technical skill levels. To accommodate a large number of utterances, some SGDs have multiple pages of symbols, with only a subset of those symbols being visible at any given time and the communicator having to scroll through the pages to see everything. Electronic voice output can be generated by speech-generating devices either by playing back digital recordings of human speech or by using speech synthesis, which may lack emotional nuance but allows the user to express themselves in novel ways.

Although the earliest prototype of an SGD dates back to the 1970s, recent advances in hardware and software have made it possible to incorporate SGD functionality into devices like smartphones. Stephen Hawking, Roger Ebert, Tony Proudfoot, and Pete Frates are just a few well-known people who use SGDs (founder of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge).

Speech-generating systems can be either purpose-built gadgets designed specifically for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) or non-dedicated gadgets like computers with special software installed.

SGDs can be traced back to the earliest forms of electronic communication technology. The patient-operated selector mechanism (POSSUM), a sip-and-puff typewriter controller developed by Reg Maling in the UK in the 1960s, was the first device of its kind. In 1969, the business introduced its first form of electronic communication: a repurposed Teletype-based typing system.

Several other companies emerged in the 1970s and 1980s and went on to become major players in the SGD industry. After contracting encephalitis and losing his ability to communicate, Toby Churchill started Toby Churchill Ltd in 1973. Beginning in the 1980s, technological advancements allowed for a proliferation of smaller, more powerful, and less expensive commercially available communication devices. Target Scanning (also known as eye pointing) is an alternative access method that utilizes the user's eye movement to calibrate an SGD to produce the desired speech phase. Scanning, where options are presented to the user in a sequential fashion, became a feature on mobile devices used for communication. In the past 20 years or so, SGD have become increasingly popular among parents of young children who have speech impairments due to conditions like autism, Down syndrome, or the anticipation of brain damage from surgery.

Specialists began to recognize the potential of SGDs for both adults and children in the early 2000s. Neuro-linguists have discovered that SGDs are just as helpful for preventing language delays in children who have recently undergone brain surgery as they are for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Particularly, digitized SGDs have been utilized by pediatric patients as post-operative communication aids.

Direct, indirect, and specialized access devices are just some of the ways that messages can be accessed on mobile devices. Using a keyboard or touch screen to interact directly with a computer system is an example of a direct access method. Users who access SGDs remotely and via specialized devices, such as a joystick, head mouse, optical head pointer, light pointer, infrared pointer, or switch access scanner, must physically move an object in order to gain access to the system.

Although AAC methods are typically much slower than speech, they do improve communicative efficacy.

Greetings, expressing desires, and questioning are just some of the many examples of communicative vocalizations that may be used in any given SGD.

Some sources refer to these as static displays, but the more common term is fixed displays, where the icons and data are permanently set in place. In comparison to other types of displays, these ones are easier to master.

Fixed display devices, such as communication boards, mimic the standard layout of low-tech AAC devices (low-tech being defined as devices that do not require batteries, electricity, or electronics). They both have similar drawbacks, such as a restricted range of expression due to a finite number of symbols. Notably, technological advancements in the twenty-first century have rendered fixed-display SGDs obsolete.

Touchscreen technology is ubiquitous on modern dynamic display devices. They typically produce visually represented electronic symbols that, when pressed, alter the displayed menu. Using page links, the user can select different sets of symbols to represent different words and messages.

Many different contexts or conversational topics may be represented by symbols on the home page of a dynamic display device. If you click on one of these icons, you might be taken to a new screen where you can read more information about that subject. A user watching a volleyball game, for instance, might say, What's the score? by first pressing the sport icon, which would bring up a page with sport-related messages.

Using a dynamic display device allows you to see the sentence being constructed, in addition to having access to a much larger vocabulary.

A keyboard and speakers are a good example of a low-cost system that doesn't require a fancy screen. This keyboard transmits typed text directly to a sound system. It can make it possible to say any phrase without resorting to the less-than-necessary visual screen. A standard telephone or speakerphone combined with a talking keyboard can allow a voice-impaired person to have a two-way conversation.

Synthesized speech uses text-to-speech software, which can carry less emotional information but allows the user to speak novel messages by typing new words, while digitized systems play directly recorded words or phrases. Some gadgets, however, can only produce a single kind of output.

Digitized words, phrases, or entire messages can be saved to the device, and then played back at the user's discretion. and (b) it allows for additional sounds, like laughter or whistling, that the user may find useful. When a patient loses the ability to speak for