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Telephone Access for People with Speech Disabilities
June 25, 2001
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. This service, called Speech to Speech, provides communication assistants for people with difficulty being understood by the public on the telephone.
People with speech disabilities can dial a toll free number to be connected with a patient Communication Assistant (CA) who is familiar with a variety of speech patterns and has excellent language recognition skills. The CA makes telephone calls for the individual and repeats their words exactly in a 3-way calling environment.
Speech to Speech (STS) is provided through the TTY relay in each state. Unlike TTY, however, STS enables people with speech disabilities to communicate by voice through the CA. This can be very helpful because many people with speech disabilities also have difficulty typing.
STS is the only way for many people to communicate on the phone with 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.
In Washington State, the toll free number for STS is 1-877-833-6341. For additional information, you can visit the Washington Relay web site.
To learn more about STS, report problems or get more information: Call 1-800-854-7784 . You may also visit the STS web site. STS also has a list serve which you can join by contacting Katherine Keller at stslistserv@stsnews.com.
For a list of U. S. Speech to Speech access numbers, visit this page.
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