The Voice Keeper Kids: Custom AAC Voices
During AAC in the Cloud, you may have had the chance to meet Jennifer Borzumato & Elik Gurvitz in their session "Empower Your child with a Personal Voice that is Uniquely Theirs."
We're excited to share a bit more about the option of a custom AAC voice in this blog post by Jennifer Borzumato. Keep reading to learn more!
The VoiceKeeper Kids works with families and their hand-picked voice donors, to create one-of-a-kind, personalized voices for pediatric AAC users. Gone are the days of generic stock voices that a child has no personal connection to.
With this revolutionary new service, kids can now hear the familiar voice of a loved one instead and actually connect to the voice they hear coming out of their device. We make the process quick, easy, and dare I say even a bit fun!
First, the family selects someone who is close to their child to be the voice donor. This is typically a sibling or cousin, who is close in age. Once selected, our team takes care of the rest! The donor's family sets up virtual recording sessions done right from the comfort of their own home and led by one of our expert voice coaches. This process allows families to get the best of our technology, with the personal guidance they need to ensure the highest quality synthetic voice.
After just a few short sessions, the donated voice is ready to connect! Our families all tell us that they have seen their child’s communication spring to life after connecting their personal voice! Children are finally able to connect to the voice they are hearing, making communication more joyful and expressive. It also provides a wonderful sense of individuality, especially in a classroom setting where there are often multiple users.
The process of voice donation is one that is also quite rewarding for the donors themselves. Children typically have no control over the disease affecting their family, and are so happy to do something that makes a difference in their loved ones' daily life! Don’t just take our word for it, listen to what some of our own families have to say about it!
Click here to learn more about The Voicekeeper.
Rhiannon’s Story:
Rhiannon is a 9-year-old AAC user. Her family found the generic voice on her AAC “just didn’t sound right.” They wanted something more personal that she could better connect to. They selected her sister Emma as a voice donor, to create the new voice. Rhiannon’s mom Trish, enjoyed the ease of the process since recording sessions were done virtually right from the home, along with one-on-one assistance from a voice coach. The family has been “blown away by how natural & effective the new voice is,” noting “to me, the difference is like night and day between the voice the device came with and the donated voice.”
Macaya’s Story:
Macayla is a 10-year-old AAC user, who was diagnosed with Cohens Syndrome in 2015. When Macayla started using her AAC to communicate, her mother, Aimee, told us they didn’t hear any “cool girl voices,” Macayla could relate to. Once connected with The Voicekeeper, big sister Riley happily volunteered to be Macayla’s voice donor. Since deploying the new personalized voice to Macayla’s device, she has become more communicative and expressive. The family found the voice creation process easy, and stress-free. Best of all, Macayla “loves sounding like her big sister.” Watch a video of their journey on our website https://www.thevoicekeeper.com/kids-case-studies
Watch our full AAC in the Cloud session to get more detail.
Jennifer Borzumato
Jennifer combines her background in theatre, and voiceovers, with her passion for working with children, to provide donors and their families with an exceptional one-on-one voice coaching experience.
