Say goodbye to stuttering
2007-08-08
Malané Bosman
IT was a miracle - a dream come true - when the 21-year-old student from Wellington recently read a letter aloud without stuttering.
For years he has been devising methods of minimising the use of words he knows he is going to stumble over. But whenever he was forced to read aloud, there was nothing he could do but grit his teeth in frustration.
That was until the day he heard about the invention being perfected right under his nose.
VoiceAmp is the brain child of another young man from Wellington, André Hoek (28).
After matriculating at Huguenot High School, Hoek obtained his diploma in electronic engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.
He was working as production engineer at a firm manufacturing satellite phones for ships and aeroplanes when he decided to return to the Technikon in 2004 to obtain a degree.
“I had no idea where I was going,” Hoek admits today.
Businessman Alan Falck of Bergvliet visited the institution searching for a student who would design a device which could assist stutterers.
André, in need of a subject for his thesis, jumped at the idea.
A year later the device, not unlike a cellular telephone or i-Pod in appearance, was complete. Falck was delighted and he and Hoek went into partnership.
A hundred devices, named VoiceAmp, were distributed to speech therapists around the country for trials on speech impaired patients.
“The feedback was very positive,” Hoek recalls.
So the device was mailed to international speech therapists and learning institutions all over the world.
The VoiceAmp uses altered auditory speech to simulate group or choral speech and thus promotes fluency by reducing the percentage of syllables stuttered.
Stutterers find that when they speak or sing in a group, their stutter disappears.
Trials are currently underway in the United Kingdom. Soon Hoek will be flying to the Netherlands on invitation of the government, who is supporting importation of advanced medical equipment.
Hoek has also started researching the possibility of using a device similar to VoiceAmp to aid sufferers of Parkinson’s disease and other forms of dysfunctional speech, such as volume loss due to cancer.
VoiceAmp sells for R12 000. Being no bigger than a cell phone, the device can be carried on your belt or in your pocket, with a link to an earpiece.
It can also be operated via Bluetooth, from the earpiece to the device in your bag or attaché case.
A new project, specifically for stutterers to use when they get what is called a “block” when answering the telephone, is currently undergoing trials in South Africa and at an university in Britain.
Funds for this project came from a mother in the UK, whose son had committed suicide when he could no longer live with his stuttering.
“Stutterers are known to substitute words for those they battle with,” Hoek explained.
“But when you answer the telephone and you cannot say your name or number, the caller often puts the phone down - causing much distress.”
The telephone assisted device (TAD) will be able to “talk” for the stutterer. It would for instance recite his name or selected phrases by the press of a button.
Hoek will have the device ready in September, and will then be delivering it to the Dominique Barker Trust in the UK, too late to help her son, but a lifeline for the many others who suffer because of stuttering.
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