Article of Note
A young girl learning how to use a speech-generating device . ( Shutterstock )
How to improve your communication with someone with a speech impairment
By Claire Davies
October marked alternative and augmentative communication ( AAC ) awareness month . AAC includes all means of communication that a person may use besides talking . Low-tech methods include means of interaction like hand gestures , facial movements , or pointing , while more high-tech tools might include a speech generating device accessed through pointing or a joystick , eye-tracking , or even a brain-computer interface .
British physicist Stephen Hawking was long the most famous person associated with AAC , using an advanced computer system to generate sentences and speech . American actor Val Kilmer is another well-known person who has used AAC . Kilmer suffered irreparable damage to his voice due to throat cancer . However , in the latest installment of the Top Gun film franchise , artificial intelligence was used to “ clone ” the actor ’ s voice .
In 2006 , 1.9 per cent of the Canadian population self-identified as having a speech disability . Unfortunately , this was the last time Statistics Canada identified speech disability within the Canadian census . That makes it difficult to gather more recent data of the number of people in Canada with impaired speech .
Need for more acceptance . Speech impairments can occur at a young age with disabilities
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