Jonas Dreiøe has developed his own speech synthesis system: “I wish the development were moving faster”
For Jonas Dreiøe, speech synthesis is absolutely essential for him to communicate and participate in social situations.
Written by Asger Lind Krebs for Danish Care
Jonas Dreiøe’s right hand glides quickly and purposefully across the phone’s screen. Shortly afterward, a voice comes from the phone’s speaker: “I developed this speech program myself because I didn’t think the programs the municipality offered me were adequate. The program is still in the very early stages of development, but it has a better vocabulary and sounds much less robotic.”
Jonas has cerebral palsy. He cannot speak. To communicate with the outside world, he uses the manual alphabet and synthetic speech.
“It means everything to me to be able to communicate in a dignified way.”
For Jonas Dreiøe, the sound of the synthetic speech is of great importance.
“When the phone speaks on my behalf, it becomes my voice. That’s why it’s also important to me that it has a proper vocabulary and that the voice suits me,” he says in a fairly lifelike voice coming from the phone.
Jonas explains that when he was a child and still used the commonly available speech synthesizers, they spoke with an adult voice.
– That was pretty messed up.
He wishes that new technological advances were utilized to a greater extent in assistive devices for people with disabilities.
Hoping for faster development
Jonas Dreiøe is an active 22-year-old. He developed his own speech synthesizer while attending HTX. He has just started studying software technology at Aarhus University. He serves on the board of CP Ung. In his free time, he plays powerchair soccer and goes rock climbing.
“Para-climbing is really cool, but also tough. There are solutions that allow people with all types of disabilities to participate.”
Jonas climbs using a harness system that is set up so that he lifts 2 kilograms every time he pulls 1 kilogram. This allows him to climb, even though he cannot walk on the ground and can only stand if he’s leaning against something.
Although Jonas leads an active and social life with the help of various assistive devices, he believes the development of new and better digital solutions should move faster. Among other things, he wishes that the text-to-speech software could work with the phone’s camera to convert the manual alphabet into speech. And that the text-to-speech software could speak while he’s typing.
“It’s hard to join a conversation when you have to finish typing to say something. So sometimes I end up just sitting there listening instead of participating.”
Although Jonas Dreiøe wishes for faster development of digital solutions for people with disabilities, there’s probably no doubt that it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be able to participate in a conversation on nearly equal terms with the help of new technologies like artificial intelligence.
The Health & Rehab trade show will take place March 4–6 at the Bella Center. The Health & Rehab trade show is Northern Europe’s leading trade fair for assistive devices, health