Telephone Access for People with Speech Disabilities

If you have a speech disability and live in the USA (including Puerto Rico
and the Virgin Islands), you can now use a new, free telephone service 24
hours a day. It is also available (fewer hours of the day) in Sweden and
Australia. This FCC mandated service, called Speech to Speech (STS), provides
communication assistants (CAs) for people with difficulty being understood by
the public on the telephone.  

STS is provided through the TTY relay in each state. Unlike TTY, STS enables
people with speech disabilities to communicate by voice through a CA as many
people with speech disabilities have difficulty typing.  

People with speech disabilities can dial toll free to reach a patient,
trained CA who is familiar with many speech patterns and has excellent
language recognition skills. This CA makes telephone calls for them and
repeats their words exactly in a 3-way calling environment. Every month users
make about 6,000 calls nationally. STS is the only way for many people to
telephone others not accustomed to their speech. Many STS users have
Parkinson's disease, cerebral palsy, ALS, multiple sclerosis, or muscular
dystrophy. Other users stutter or have had a laryngectomy. STS also helps
some speech synthesizer users.  

Bob Segalman, PhD has cerebral palsy and developed the concept of STS. Now
it makes telephone use much easier for him. To try out STS, report problems
or get more information: call 800/854-7784 and ask for Dr. Bob Segalman
(direct 916/263-8689). You may also visit the STS website:
http://www.stsnews.com or contact Katherine Keller at
stslistserv@stsnews.com to place you on the STS Listserve.