Overview
Introduction
FluencyCoach software uses altered auditory feedback technology to simulate the effect of "choral speech" (speaking simultaneously with another person), known for years to promote fluency in individuals afflicted by various types of dysfluencies and has been particularly successful in treating stuttering.
The effect of DAF basically amounts to hearing your voice with a slight delay after speaking, like an echo. FAF, on the other hand, changes the pitch of your voice, lower or higher, enhancing the impression of another voice speaking along with you. Both, DAF and FAF, each reduce stuttering aproximatelly 70% and have been demonstrated to produce significant carry-over fluency. Combining DAF and FAF (changing Delay and Pitch simultaneously) reduces stuttering over 80%.
FluencyCoach can be used in two ways. First, it can be used as a speech aid to improve fluency immediatelly, without training, mental effort or abnormally sounding speech, reducing stuttering by aproximatelly %70 on the average and producing significant rates of carryover fluency — permanent reduction of stuttering.
For immediate improvement the delay can be set between 50 and 100 milliseconds and pitch shift to between -0.5 and 0.5. With these settings enabled, you can begin using FluencyCoach while doing basic reading exercises (a list of your "problem" words and sounds, a poem, character's part from your favorite play, or any other text), making phone call to your friends or family members or doing so via your favorite VoIP application (such as Skype, Google Talk, Instant Messenger or Microsoft Live Messenger, all of which are compatible with and can be used parallel to FluencyCoach; see VoIP compatibility section below for details) or by participating in an online chat or conference regularly organized by speech-language pathologists and persons who stutter. If you are a part of a stuttering support group or participate and group speech therapy, you could schedule weekly online chat sessions with one or several of your peers. As you become more comfortable using FluencyCoach, try experimenting with different Delay and Pitch settings to find the optimal settings that yield best improvement in your speech.
FluencyCoach can also be used in conjuction with any of several prominent stuttering therapies employing altered auditory feedback to support the fluency shaping target of slow speech with stretched vowels. For this purpose the delay is usually set at 200 milliseconds and then reduced to shorter delays (as short as 75 milliseconds) over the course of the therapy program. You can create your own schedule of exercises or contact your speech-language pathologist to discuss the possible ways of incorporating the FluencyCoach into speech therapy.
Please consult the Therapy guide section of this website for more information on using FluencyCoach as an integral tool in an autonomous, at home self-treatment or in conjunction with speech therapy to achieve definitive long term improvement.
Interface guide
The interface is intuitivelly simple. There are three sliders that control Delay (Delayed Auditory Feedback), Pitch (Frequency-shifted Auditory Feedback), and Volume settings, with meters to the right side corresponding to current setting. Click the image below for full-sized screenshot of the main user interface.
Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF), labeled Delay, delays playback of your voice for a fraction of a second, depending on the settings you select. The application provides delay range from 25 to 225 milliseconds. For immediate speech improvement, a short delay (50-80 milliseconds) is typically used, almost instantly reducing stuttering without changing the normal speaking rate. A longer delay (90-220 milliseconds) is usually used in speech therapy in order to lower the rate of speech and practice stretching vowels. See the Therapy guide section of this website for more information on using FluencyCoach in conjunction with various speech therapies.
Frequency Altered Feedback (FAF), labeled Pitch, shifts the pitch of your voice. The application provides the pitch shift in the range from one-half octave down to one-half octave up. According to research, significantly higher rates of fluency are produced when FAF is used simultaneously with DAF (see our Therapy guide for details). At 0 mark, the Pitch shift is disabled.
Volume can be adjusted to the optimal sound volume you are comfortable with. We added this feature so that you don't have to chage you computer's main sound settings each time you use FluencyCoach.
Auto Save feature (not part of the user interface), enabled by default, automatically saves the configured settings when it is closed and restores them when it is restarted.
Start and Pause buttons turn on and off the altered auditory feedback.
Auto Start checkbox, when checked, will automatically start the sound playback when you launch the application. The appliction will start with Volume, Pitch and Delay settings configured durning previous session.
Recording and Playback feature allows you to record your speech and save it to a file (.wav format) which you can play back directly from FluencyCoach by pressing play botton or from your default audio player (e.g. Media Player or WinAmp). This is particularly useful if you want to transcribe your speech in order to identify particular words, syllables or sounds which give you the most problems and to compose word lists for reading practice on the basis of the transcription. Your recorded speech can also be useful to a speech-language pathologists when planning your therapy and to track your progress on your way to complete fluency.
Background Mode allows the application to run in the background or in minimized state, using FluencyCoach while working in another programs, such as Voice Over IP applications.
VoIP compatibility
FluencyCoach is compatible with, and can be ran parallel to most VoIP applications, including Skype, Instant Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger or Microsoft Live Messenger .
Using FluencyCoach for a telephone or VoIP call or teleconference can be an easy way to do speech therapy. Since altered auditory feedback produces a significant rate of carryover fluency, after a few calls your speech may be improved for the rest of the day. If you are a part of a stuttering support group or participate and group speech therapy, you could schedule weekly online chat sessions with your one or several of your peers.