Type2Speak is an iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad app that provides text to speech technology to people with difficulty communicating. This could be as a result of weakness of the muscles of speech (dysarthria) or difficulties with voice (dysphonia). It has been developed by two speech and language therapists, both with 10 years experience working with adults with communication and swallowing disorders in the UK.
It is potentially useful to people who have communication difficulties as a result of neurological disease or other conditions.
Users can save phrases and access them via a library function. In the library pressing the "Aa" button will automatically paste the selected phrase into the speech window on the main page. By using the "edit" function in the library, users can delete or re-order saved phrases to personalise use of the app. Re-ordering is simple. Each phrase has a button represented by three horizontal lines on the right hand side of the edit page. To move a selected phrase up or down the list, simply press and hold the button and drag the phrase to the required position.
An optional voice synthesis library will be used when your device has an active internet connection. This library in configurable through the device Settings.
If increased volume is required, any external speaker that uses a 3.5mm jack could be used. On iPad Bluetooth keyboards can be used where users require an alternative to the on-screen keyboard.
If you think Type2Speak may be useful for you, we would recommend that you discuss this with your speech pathologist/therapist.
If you have any queries or feedback we’d love to hear from you and you can contact us via email ([email protected]) or check http://www.speechpathologytoolkit.com or http://www.speechlanguagesolutions.co.uk for further information.