Help!!

What do you do when you need help communicating information about speech with those in your caseload and getting them to understand how to make changes in their voices? The little boy who just can't seem to find the right tongue position for his 'R's. The girl whose slushy 'S' is driving you crazy. The youngster who just won't do purposeful voicing.

There are, of course, a plethora of speech therapy techniques and a number of tools available to streamline the process. One of those tools is the visual feedback on voice production Video Voice provides. We obviously believe its displays and games offer great benefits for communicating about most any aspect of speech development and remediation, and so do the many speech-language pathologists who have added it to their tool kits.

But what do you do when you need help with Video Voice? Used to be, you’d pull out the big user manual and pore through the index for answers. The problem with printed documentation, however, is that it can all too quickly become out of date, especially if the software changes. Since we’re always working on adding to and improving Video Voice, changes are a common and frequent occurrence. We therefore decided not to provide a printed manual, but instead make it an internal, integral part of the software operation. As the program changes, so does its reference material.

On virtually every Video Voice screen, you’ll find a Help button. Clicking it opens the built-in manual to the page appropriate to the area you're using. This internal documentation is not the anemic, sketchy variety many software programs have, the kind that can raise more questions than they answer. Video Voice's Help file contains more than 150 "pages" of information, chock-full of details on what the controls do for you, and how they function. The pages have an on-line "feel" to them, and are loaded with links that easily transport you to other related parts of the manual.

There are other built-in tools, too, like the Help Me Choose interactive guide and the Solutions and Support materials, all of which have buttons/links on the Main Menu. The "tool tips" for controls that appear when you dwell your cursor over them also briefly describe function to let you know if a control is what you need to use.

But sometimes you just really need to talk to somebody! We're proud to offer friendly, responsive support to both existing Video Voice users and those who are evaluating to see how it can meet their needs. You can ask your questions or get suggestions for appropriate use with different speech problems either by phone or email. Most of the time when you call, you'll hear a real person's voice on the other end of the line. If you do happen to get a recorded voice, just leave your name and number, and we'll call you back as soon as we can.

Just the other day a speech-language pathologist who's considering Video Voice called for guidance on what things would be most helpful with children she works with. Her caseload runs the gamut of the autism spectrum, from low-functioning, preschool-aged children who need vocal awareness encouragement to older, fluent ones who need to work on expressive function, particularly increasing pitch range and intonation skills. I was able to make a variety of suggestions for both cases. For the little ones who need to develop understanding that something happens when they use their voices, games like Chat-N-U-Go Choo-Choo and Pitch Painting can communicate that cause and effect. For the older boy who speaks in a monotone, P-A-R Pitch displays can illustrate desired voicing, pitch and fluent intonation in a sentence like "How ARE you?" vs. how it looks and sounds differently when he uses a flat pitch with distinct pauses between words. There are lots of other options, too, but we only talked about those few in our brief conversation.

We all need a little help sometimes, and that includes us. We do our very best to make Video Voice a flexible, easy-to-use tool, but hearing from speech-language pathologists (or others) about how they're using the displays helps us understand what we can do to make it even more effective. Of course we like to hear about things you like, but just as important are the things you don't like. If you have problems, they’re our problems, too, but we can’t fix them if we don’t know they exist. We welcome all feedback, so please give us yours!

In closing, here’s a little musical entertainment that fits the bill, and might just put a smile on your face: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=606ZcMKXlUg. 

And remember, when you need someone, we're here to help!

Video Voice Support Team
mv@videovoice.com
1-800-537-2182
www.videovoice.com