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A therapeutic speech amplifier and its use in speech therapy

THE primary purpose of therapeutic speech amplification is to make louder and more audible the speech of patients whose voices are impaired. However, in the course of clinical trials it has become apparent that an amplifier which gives instantaneous feed-back of speech to the patient can also be an important teaching aid and a valuable adjunct to the traditional methods of speech training (Watson, 1967; Greene and Watson, 1968; Watson and Greene, 1968; Greene, 1967). An important aspect of speech therapy is hearing training which aims at developing a critical ear in the patient so that he becomes more fully aware of his vocal performance and this leads to eventual self-correction of faults. To develop the patient's ability to monitor speech, the therapist normally relies upon such devices as contrasting good and bad vocal patterns in her own voice, verbal evaluation of the patient's voice, and also the playback of tape recordings of speech for critical analysis. It has been found that the use of an amplifier and instantaneous feed-back of speech greatly shortens the period of hearing training and provides a short cut to the required degree of self-monitoring without which speech cannot improve. Another important aspect of traditional speech therapy is the reduction of anxiety which always accompanies impaired powers of communication and the development of muscular relaxation so that the functions of the respiratory and laryngeal phonatory muscles are more effectively co-ordinated. An amplifier can therefore reduce anxiety over failure to produce an audible voice and the accompanying tension arising out of excessive muscular effort to increase vocal volume. Relaxation thus induced invariably results in improvement in performance. Many patients after using an amplifier in the speech clinic, at home and at work find speech so much improved that they can discard the speech aid altogether or reserve it only for occasions when they are tired or have to speak against considerable background noise. The amplifier has to have special characteristics since it must be portable, and small so that it can be worn unobtrusively. It must be light in weight, reliable and operate with a range of microphones which pick up the voice according to the special requirements of the patient. It must