"The question from the survey, "How has the SpeechEasy impacted my life?" absolutely warrants a thorough answer. I am a forty-year-old speech-language pathologist who stutters. I have tried every therapy! Some examples are: Cafet, Precision Fluency program, Northwestern University's approach, and Hollins Fluency program. All of these therapies worked to some degree and for a certain amount of time. I have an advantage because of my career. However, no matter how hard I worked the therapies, they were not an acceptable percentage of fluency for my standards. To be precise, nothing has had such as impact on my life as the SpeechEasy. I could go on and on, but for efficiency I will list the ways. 1. My entire feeling about communication in general has drastically improved. 2. My self-esteem regarding my ability to communicate has improved greatly. 3. I use to dread the phone terribly. Now I am able to make phone calls I never thought would be possible. Because of my SpeechEasy, I actually enjoy using the phone. 4. My eye contact when talking is so much better. 5. I am overall more calm inside. 6. This is a difficult one to explain so I will do my best. When using the SpeechEasy, I feel like the transmission from the brain to the speech muscles are on a smooth tract which causes me to feel calm. I feel this even if I experience some stuttering behavior. Without the SpeechEasy I feel like the "connections are constantly going over bumps and getting lost."
- Renee Schubert, Plainfield, IL, User for 10 months
- Renee Schubert, Plainfield, IL, User for 10 months
Stuttering and Research
Stuttering and research has been the focus of East Carolina University faculty members Drs. Michael Rastatter, Joseph Kalinowski and Andrew Stuart whom have spent the past 12 years researching the effect of delayed auditory feedback (DAF) and frequency auditory feedback (FAF) on stuttering. Since 1992, their research has involved approximately 240 research participants in the United States and 30 in Europe. Their findings led to the development of the SpeechEasy anti-stuttering fluency device, which emulates the effect of choral speech, thereby inhibiting stuttering and producing fluency.East Carolina University received patents for the SpeechEasy device in 1999.
Drs. Rastatter, Kalinowski and Stuart have published more than 47 research articles and abstracts in numerous scientific and professional journals regarding stuttering and research findings in the use of DAF and FAF to produce fluency in individuals who stutter.
