Richie is a young gentleman who was born with Cerebral Palsy (brain damage at birth). When I first met him, it was clear that he was an extremely competent communication aid user, but his communication aid had not been updated since he left school. It did not meet his needs as a young adult to express his wishes, wants and feelings.

Richie and I embarked on a project to revamp his entire communication system, with the help of a specialist in assistive technology and other members of his MDT (multidisciplinary team). One of our first conversations identified that Richie hated the voice on his current device – he felt that it made him sound like an American. Richie lives in East Yorkshire, and wanted to sound like his friends and family, whilst at the same time having a unique voice to call his own, to reflect his own identity.

I told Richie about the voice banking service offered by SpeakUnique, which offers the opportunity for donor voices to be blended to create an entirely new voice. We decided to contact Look North to appeal for voice donors to help us with this process – and the rest, as they say, is history!

35 gentlemen applied to offer their voices to Richie. They all sent in video or audio recordings, and Richie rated them out of 10. He finally settled on his favourite 3 voices, and we organised to speak to them over Zoom. Richie couldn’t decide on the required 2 voices, so SpeakUnique made him a choice of 3 blended voices to choose from. Eventually Richie had a voice to call his own!

Richie’s story became a huge hit with the media, and together we have been able to use the opportunity to raise awareness of communication disabilities, and really show the world that people with communication impairment still have plenty to say. We’ve appeared on BBC local and national news programmes, Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4, Channel 5 news and Radio 5 Live, to name but a few. Richie loves being a media star and finds it hilarious when I get nervous!

Richie now uses a GridPad from SmartBox, with his own unique voice. We continue to work on developing his communication aid to empower him to take on the world.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-56253739
https://www.nrtimes.co.uk/finding-a-voice-for-richie/
https://metro.co.uk/2021/03/23/yorkshireman-with-cerebral-palsy-wants-to-change-american-computer-accent-14290206/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-57274521
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWmfT6CHiJA