Preserving Natural Voice For The Severely Disabled (Dysarthia)

My Idea serial ID: 00489

Medicine - Technology. The current state of the art for persons who lose the ability to speak is tone neutral, uninflected, computer generated speach. Certainly better than the darkness of silence, but we can readily do better. The archtypeal user is Dr. Stephen Hawking, one among many others too numerous to list who cannot generate voice unassisted. My idea - and because it is so important, I have no desire to claim recompense for its use - is to routinely preserve a naturalised speach database for persons at risk. Dysarthia is the inability to speak due to lack of muscular and/or neural control. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS Lou Gherig's Disease) can, and in its advanced phases, does cause the loss of the ability to speak naturally. Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and numerous other disorders similarly have this devastating effect. These conditions do not strike so suddenly that my proposal cannot be implemented. There is adequate warning in nearly all cases. Digital sampling is commonplace and very accurate in recreating audio patterns, particularly voice. In the unfortunate event that such a condition is diagnosed, a thorough sampling of the afflicted person's voice, including phonics, inflections, recitations of the alphabet, numbers, common words and phrases, also included would be natural ceasuras, accent, etc. THIS ALL SHOULD BE REDUCED TO A DIGITAL FILE FOR SAFEKEEPING. An archive of the person's natural speach. As the disease state progresses, the digital file can be used as a means to enable computer generated speach to be reconstructed in as realistic and close a manner as technology permits. Like other forensic means, a predictive ageing of the voice can also be developed as needed. I invite those with greater expertise in the appropriate fields to contact me and to further develop the "Natural Speach Initiative" as a means to better preserve the dignity, humanity, and personality of those who current medicine cannot prevent from losing this vital link to humanity. For persons such as Mr. Hawking, other archival sound samples might be used to generate their original voice to the greatest degree. Please respond if you can bring this concept to reality.