19 March 2009

VIVOCA speech synthesis featured in Guardian article

The Voice Input Voice Output Communication Aid (VIVOCA) developed jointly by Barnsley Hospital and researchers in the Department of Computer Science has been featured in a Guardian article.

The aid allows people with severe dysarthria (imperfect speech cause by damage to the nervous system) to communicate using a speech synthesiser in a range of male and female voices with regional dialects. The Barnsley poet Ian McMillan and the Yorkshire BBC newsreader Christa Ackroyd have supplied voices for the device.

For more information, see the Guardian article.