Voice banking for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is a process where individuals record their voice in advance to create a personalised synthetic version that can later be used with AAC devices. This is especially valuable for people with progressive conditions, such as MND (Motor Neurone Disease) or Primary Progressive Aphasia, who may lose the ability to speak but want to maintain a voice that reflects their natural speech.
Technology also exists to use old videos or voice recordings to recreate a voice. This may be useful for someone who has had a severe stroke or traumatic brain injury and has become an AAC user.
Key Features of Voice Banking:
- Personalised Voice: Users record a variety of phrases, sentences, and sounds to capture their unique vocal characteristics—tone, inflection, accent, and more. These recordings are then used to create a synthetic voice that resembles their natural voice.
- Preemptive Planning: Voice banking is done before the person experiences significant speech loss. It's a proactive step taken when speech is still relatively intact, allowing future communication to retain a personal touch.
- Use with AAC Devices: Once the voice is banked and converted into a digital model, it can be integrated with AAC systems. Users can select words, phrases, or sentences on the AAC device, which then "speaks" them using the banked voice.
- Emotional Connection: Maintaining a familiar voice can have an emotional and psychological benefit, both for the person using the AAC device and their loved ones. It helps preserve a sense of identity.
- Flexible Usage: Voice banking also offers the option of combining the banked voice with text-to-speech functions, allowing users to communicate via phrases they hadn’t pre-recorded but still using a synthetic version of their own voice.
- Rapid and Easy Access: Modern AAC devices and apps are designed for ease of use, so accessing the banked voice for day-to-day communication is typically fast and intuitive, even as physical abilities decline.
Process of Voice Banking:
- Recording: Individuals typically record hundreds to thousands of sentences, which capture various sounds and inflections of their speech. This is done using voice banking software, either at home or with professional assistance.
- Synthesis: The recordings are processed by specialised software to create a synthetic version of the person's voice, which can be used in conjunction with AAC devices.
- Integration: The synthesized voice is stored and then imported into the AAC device. The user can select messages, and the AAC device will "speak" the selected message using the banked voice.
Alternatives:
- Message Banking: Instead of synthesizing a full voice, message banking involves recording specific phrases or sentences that the person anticipates using. These are played back in the exact voice recording rather than synthesized speech.
Who Uses Voice Banking?
- Individuals diagnosed with conditions that may affect their ability to speak over time, such as:
- MND
- Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
- Parkinson's Disease
Voice banking allows individuals to maintain a degree of personal expression in their communication even if they lose the ability to speak naturally, making it a powerful tool in maintaining autonomy and emotional connection through speech. AK Speech Therapy can offer support to people who wish to explore voice banking or restoring voice from old videos. Further information on this process, including videos and a detailed comparison of software options can be found on the Talklink website Voice Banking 2024 (talklink.org.nz).