Fact Sheet:
Telephone Access For People With Speech DisabilitiesAuthor: Bob Segalman
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. It is also available (fewer
hours of the day) in Sweden and Australia. This FCC mandated service, called
Speech to Speech (STS), provides communication assistants (CAs) for people with
difficulty being understood by the public on the telephone. STS is provided through
the TTY relay in each state. Unlike TTY, STS enables people with speech disabilities
to communicate by voice through a CA as many people with speech disabilities
have difficulty typing. People with speech disabilities
can dial toll free to reach a patient, trained CA who is familiar with many
speech patterns and has excellent language recognition skills. This CA makes
telephone calls for them and repeats their words exactly in a 3-way calling
environment. Every month users make about 6,000 calls nationally. STS is the
only way for many people to telephone 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. Bob Segalman, Ph.D. has
cerebral palsy and developed the concept of STS. Now it makes telephone use
much easier for him. To try out STS, report problems or get more information:
Call 800-854-7784 and ask for Dr. Bob Segalman (direct 916-263-8689). You may
also visit the STS website: http://www.stsnews.com/
or contact Katherine Keller at stslistserv@stsnews.com
to place you on the STS List Serve. Bob is gathering support
letters to insure that every state implements an STS Outreach Service to tell
people with speech disabilities about STS. If you're willing to sign a support
letter, please e-mail Bob at: bsegalma@dor.ca.gov
and indicate which state you live in and request a draft. For a list of U. S. Speech-to-Speech
access numbers go to:
http://www.stsnews.com/Pages/STSDial-UpTelnumbers.html Australia provides STS.
Contact: Ace.Tom.McCaul@uq.net.au
(Tom McCaul).
Sweden has just extended its STS trial for one year. | 
