Speak Unique

[Scottymitch]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Scott and this is my 1st time on the forum. I am blown away by everyone's stories, support and assistance. Thank you for creating/having this platform as it really provides people with a place to go to be hear and to have confidence to talk.

My Mum was recently diagnosed with MND and we have seen a rapid decrease in voice. MND Scotland have been amazing and we recently banked Mums voice via Speak Unique. Its getting very close for Mum to start to use this and I have been educating her on the application. She asked me a question today that I don't know the answer and thought I could reach out to see if anyone has any experience of this.

Can Mum use this software to still have phone conversations or how do other people communicate via the phone with this software? Mum wants to still communicate to her family in Ireland via the phone and she is scared there is no possibilities of this.

The only thing I thought of is if she uses the software through the Ipad and the speaker projects the voice for the person on the phone to hear, not sure if this would work.

Sorry if my question isnt clear!

Thanks again and Thanks for any replies

[Claireflo]

Hi Scottymitch welcome to the forum. I can't help with your question as it was too late to bank my dad's voice so he uses a lightwriter and I do his calls for him (he was never one for social calls do it works for him).
There are loads of people happy to help on the forum so I'm sure if anyone can answer your question they will.
Claire

[Scottymitch]

Thanks Claire for reaching out, I appreciate it. Not sure if you are aware, but if you have old audio of your Dads voice I am pretty sure they can use this to create a voice. Just thought I would mention this. Thanks again for the welcome and your comments. Take care

[Claireflo]

Thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately I don't have any audio of my dad's voice, just my memory of it!

[Hope]

Scottymitch welcome. I have been using SpeakUnique for a few weeks now but I am not aware of any function to allow phone conversations. Like you, I think the only way is to use an iPad and phone together. I have not yet tried this, although I do keep thinking I ought to!

[JamesW]

Hi Mitch,

Welcome to the Forum and thank you for reaching out 😊

I do not have personal experience of using a voice banking software other than to have recorded my voice already in advance. However having your mum speak through her iPad speaker and it be then picked up on a nearby phone I wouldn’t of thought would be a problem? The iPhone itself works very well in hands-free mode with its own speaker active (that’s how i use mine).

I would be interested to hear how you solve the problem 👍

James

[GillB]

Scottymitch

It is indeed possible. I have Predictable as it was too late to bank my voice.

I guess it is similar and if you have your phone on hands free and volume up loud on the speech app it is possible to be heard on a phone call and answer back.

You could maybe have some phrases stored in advance as that makes a conversation easier.

Hope this helps. Maybe just try it and see how it goes.

[Heather R]

Hi Scott, I banked my voice with Speak Unique in its early days, and the voice they produced for me was very quiet and unclear. I know they were working hard to improve with feedback, so hope you are pleased with the result. I come from a family with a degree of hereditary deafness, so I now use someone else’s voice from Speech Assist app, which is a lot clearer and louder. But I hate phone calls! I prefer using WhatsApp and email to communicate with my family, as then I have the time to type out words at my own pace and at a good time for me. Good luck to your mum, would love to hear what she finds best x

[Ellie]

Scottymitch A warm welcome to the forum.

Also worth noting that Zoom (plus others) has a chat facility for the written word and I also use text-to-speech on such calls with everyone hearing me (voice banking wasn't around when I lost my speech)

Love Ellie xx

[JamesW]

Scottymitch (voice banking wasn't around when I lost my speech)

Now I’m not saying Ellie has been here a while but I don’t think computers were actually around when Ellie lost her speech? 🤔

🤣🤣🤣😘😘😘

[Ellie]

JamesW Yep, and my wheelchair was straight out of Bedrock 😉😘

[JamesW]

JamesW Yep, and my wheelchair was straight out of Bedrock 😉😘

Yabbadabbadooooooo 😘😘

[Scottymitch]

Thank you to everyone that took the time to reply. I really do appreciate this.

You are all inspirational!!. I have been reading many of the topics and this platform is just a great way to communicate. I know that you are all going through your own journey, but yet you are so selfless and happy to help others in need. THANK YOU