	November 1997

People With Speech Disabilities Now Have A Telephone Support Service

Bob Segalman, Ph.D.

If you are a Californian with a speech disability, you can now use a new, free telephone assistance service 24 hours a day. This service, called Speech- to-Speech, provides human voicers for people who have difficulty being understood by the public on the telephone.

You can dial 800-854-7784 to reach a patient, trained operator who knows your situation and has acute hearing. This operator makes telephone calls for you and repeats your words exactly.

The service was successfully tested with 2000 calls made by people with speech disabilities. Speech-to-Speech is also useful if you use a speech synthesizer. Speech-to-Speech is the only way for many people to telephone others not accustomed to their speech. Many Speech-to-Speech users are people with Parkinson's disease or cerebral palsy.

"I have cerebral palsy and Speech-to-Speech made telephone use much easier for me," said Bob Segalman, the developer of the project.

If you use this free service, please make your first call to Bob Segalman by dialing 800-854-7784 and asking the operator who answers for 916-927-3794. If enough people identify themselves as users, the California Public Utilities Commission will make Speech-to-Speech permanent.

The Speech-to-Speech project is a service of the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications program of the California Public Utilities Commission. It is also sponsored by the Sacramento Center for Assistive Technology and the California Department of Rehabilitation.

You may obtain further information by contacting:

Bob Segalman, Ph.D. and
Cindy Gooch, MS
916-927-3787 V/TDD
916-649-1665 FAX
Email: Bob.Segalman@deaftek.sprint.com

For more information on the service available now in Maryland, see September's Tapping Technology article "Speech-to-Speech Relay Service"

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