Shared Smiles

Probably the most rewarding part of about being involved with Video Voice is hearing stories about how it helps people. We get lots of positive feedback from users, and I thought I’d share a few with you.

A year or so ago, a therapist told us about using the Voice-A-Sketch game with one of her students with fluency problems. She had him try to reveal an entire hidden picture with by sustaining vocalization of a sentence, and he’d been practicing diligently. A teaching aide who was in the room with them as he successfully completed the task spun around in surprise - it was the first time she'd heard him form a complete sentence without stuttering!

A therapist who uses Video Voice with autistic students told us that it really motivates them to participate in speech therapy. In fact, sometimes it's the ONLY thing they will respond to! (Obviously, that’s not the ultimate goal, but at least it’s a start.)

Pitch awareness and control is a common problem for hearing-impaired students, and that was the case with a profoundly deaf third grader. Her voice was shrill and squeaky, so her therapist used the Pitch Painting game to help her learn to lower her pitch. That game represents, pitch as colors in a spectrum, with high pitch appearing as light colors such as yellow and white. The child’s goal was to keep her colors "under pink," and she was able to achieve that goal regularly while using the display. Carry-over is always a challenge, though, so the therapist came up with a creative idea for times when they were not at the computer. She began to sign "under pink" when her pitch was too high, and the child would respond by lowering it. They taught teachers in her other classes to use that sign, too, and all were impressed at how she responded appropriately.

Especially rewarding are the stories come from those who improved their speech skills with the visual feedback.

One of our favorite, long-time Video Voice users shared a story that had made her smile. While she was out shopping one day, a young woman approached her and said "I don't know if you remember me, but you were my speech therapist when I was in school. We used a computer program that helped me learn to say my R's correctly!" This was at least 10 years after the fact, but when she learned her name, she did recall her and their therapy goals. So pleased to be remembered and know she’d made a real difference in that young woman’s life, that she made sure to share the story with us.

Not long ago we received an email from a hearing-impaired woman who had run across the Video Voice website and thought it might be the same program she'd used in therapy about a decade earlier. She said she'd often thought about how Video Voice helped her understand what she needed to do with her voice, and wondered if it was still around. She was pleased to find that it was. Her therapist was the one who suggested the "train game" (Chat-N-U-Go Choo-Choo) to us, and offered guidance in the development of that activity. It was fun to hear that she remembered Video Voice fondly, particularly that activity, and felt she had benefitted from the feedback it provided.

These are just a few of the stories we’ve heard over the years. If you’ve had successes with people in your caseload either while using the Free Trial or full Video Voice program, we’d love to hear from you, too!

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

Visual Feedback Enhances Speech Therapy Results

The benefits visual feedback offers to both clincians and individuals receiving speech therapy are unquestionable.  Speech is fleeting and intangible by nature, and challenges in interpreting it can be influenced by a number of things, including hearing loss and other auditory processing deficits.  While production of some sounds can be illustrated fairly easily using our mouths, elements such as pitch and volume are essentially invisible.  Having a way to freeze, view and replay a speech production and its components therefore has great value.

Visual feedback changes the nature of the speech therapy process, giving the student or patient a different sense of control.  After all, it is his voice that's represented and recorded, and he has a new way to understand and learn to modify tongue or other articulator position to change the resulting display.  It's no longer a case of what the therapist says he's doing right or wrong, it's what both people see happening on the screen, and it gives them a different way to discuss it.  As more than one therapist has told us, "They can't argue with me anymore!"

For those who have already had years of speech therapy and are bored with the process, visual feedback brings new life to the activities.   Having different games to play and displays to practice sounds, words and connected speech turns therapy into a fun, exciting adventure to be explored and enjoyed.

Video Voice has many entertaining practice formats that keep therapy recipients motivated and eager to succeed in improving their speech skills.  Many provide live feedback on pitch, volume or sounds, so the speaker gets instant response to changes he makes, helping him find and maintain correct production.  Colorful animations and encouraging messages support the therapist by rewarding good performance. 

There are many reasons to consider visual feedback as an adjunct to speech therapy.  If you're not already exploring the benefits, you're missing out on a tool that can expedite progress with your caseload.  You can give Video Voice a try for free to see for yourself how it can enhance your therapy results.  There's no cost to download and explore what it can do for you.  Just pay a visit to http://www.videovoice.com/!

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

Let's Talk Video Voice!

When starting up a blog, the biggest challenge is figuring out where to start! With the Video Voice Speech Training System, there is a LOT to talk about. It has a long history, having been successfully used by speech therapists in schools, hospitals and clinics for more than 25 years. It has numerous games and displays that provide visual feedback to assist in speech therapy with almost any kind of speech problem, with young children through adults.

Over the years, Video Voice has undergone many changes, getting better with each new version, as we make additions and enhancements based on our own testing and creative thinking, as well as feedback from people using it. Feedback from therapists has historically been an important part of Video Voice development, and we take comments and suggestions seriously. If there’s something someone doesn’t like, we try to modify operation accordingly. If someone has an idea for a new game or display, we do our best to incorporate it.

One example is the Chat-N-U-Go Choo-Choo game, requested by a therapist who had some children in her caseload who were fascinated by trains. In response, we added a game in which sound production makes a train move through a mountain scene. Another therapist really wanted non-violent game graphics in the Bombs Away! game (now called Bulls Eye!), so we added an option in which a plane drops care packages to waiting hungry villagers instead of bombs on ships or tanks. (The boys still like the bombs best, though - no big surprise!) That therapist also suggested a cause-and-effect display that would result in flowers growing when a cloud rains in the right places, and the Flower Power game option was born. There are lots of other examples, but the point is that we listen to our users and do our best to make Video Voice do what they need it to do.

The goal of this blog is to provide a forum for communicating with our users, as well as people who are considering adding it to their speech therapy tool kits. We’ll tell you about the history, discuss different ways the visual feedback can be used in the therapy process, let you know about new things that we’ve added or are in progress, and answer questions you may have. We welcome your thoughts, opinions, feedback and suggestions.

If you don’t already have Video Voice, you can download the software and try it for free for 30 days to see what benefits it may offer you. Just visit www.videovoice.com and click any of the Free Trial links to get started. By the way, there’s no on going financial obligation with the trial, no credit card necessary to download and try out the games and displays - the trial simply expires at the end of the 30-day period. (You will need an external microphone, and the one we recommend is the Logitech USB Desktop model. It’s a good quality but inexpensive mic that’s commonly used in telecommunications and gaming, and it is easily available at most electronics stores or online, generally for around $30.) If you do already use Video Voice, remember that you can get no-charge updates as new versions are released to keep your software up-to-date.

That’s it for now, and we look forward to more Video Voice Talk with you!

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