26 April 2011

MyVOCA project in the news

Researchers in the Department of Computer Science and the School of Health and Related Research have been in the press regarding their "MyVOCA" project, which aims to give patients with degenerative conditions a synthesized version of their own voice.

Dr Sarah Creer was interviewed about this research in the Sheffield Star. She said:

“We want to develop a communication aid for people whose voices have started to go, such as those with MND or Parkinson’s disease, the kind of conditions which cause progressive deterioration.

Some systems already exist and currently work as communication aids for such patients before they have started to deteriorate. However, the most popular device requires a patient to record 1,800 sentences and phrases from which any sentence a patient wants to speak can be generated. The Sheffield project would require a maximum of 200 utterances to be recorded.

You can read the full interview with Dr Creer here.