In 1995 Sue suffered a traumatic brain injury when she fell off of her pedal cycle and hit her head on the pavement. She was not wearing a helmet and this resulted in her having a severe speech impediment, amongst other injuries.
She was in hospital for a total of 9 months and whilst there she used a 'Type Talk' machine whereby she typed on a keyboard and it said the words for her in a robotic tone.
Before her accident, Sue was a police officer and later worked as a civilian duties officer. She found that she could cope with her sustained injuries but the main problem was she could not communicate very well at all and she found this most frustrating.
But in 2011 Sue was organising a police cadet reunion and contacted her speech therapist, Lucie to ask if she could borrow the 'Type Talk' so she would at least be able to be understood on the night in question. She was informed that technology had progressed to unbelievable heights and that Therapy Box now provided an app called Predictable which not only spoke in an English accent (plus American/ Australian and other accents if required) but you could choose from a male or female and it sounded like a normal voice not like that which Stephen Hawking, the scientist uses.
Sue Jones - how I use Predictable
There have now been several updates to Predictable, including:
Choices of colours are now available for both: the background of Predictable and you can choose your text colour to be black or white.
There are 3 Keyboards to choose from: Qwerty / ABCD / High Frequency Keyboard.
Copy & Paste facility
Re: Categories, you can now save the same sentence you use frequently & use it in other named list's and also in your Favourites Bar when Phrases can be used immediately without having to go into the different Categories Selection Boxes.
These updates are simple to download onto your specific device that you may use, i.e. iPhone, iPad etc.
Sue still tries to improve her vocal tones and clarity of her voice but knows that some people don't even begin to listen to her when they've heard her monotone. So she uses it on an iPhone and it has come in very handy, especially when she wants to make a complaint and the receiver doesn't even bother to listen when she's speaking. She also used it to make a speech at her recent 50th birthday party. It has a lead connection to the Speakers and she was thrilled with the reaction gained from her party attendees because it made her feel human again & still does today.
As written by Sue.
