Text to Speech

Speechify is a text to speech tool. It can be used to read aloud any typed text: messages, social media, e-books, PDF's, or photograph text to read pages from books, magazines and other text

Highlight text as you read

Choose speech rate

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Syncs across devices

Text to speech program. Reads text aloud as it is typed so you can listen to what you are typing 

Brief description

• Spelling errors are highlighted and alternative suggestions are given
• Word prediction can be enabled
• Option to hear each word as it's typed or to listen only when a sentence is completed

Who could benefit

People who 

Customiseable app to enable the non-verbal/non-literate user to send text messages to designated communication partners

The user presses a sequence of 2 messages to be automatically sent by text to the communication partner of their choice. All messages are represented by a picture/photo (e.g. I need shopping, please get me some apples)

Pictures, text labels and spoken labels can all be customised

App can be modified remotely (i.e. SLT/carer can change messages on a desktop and it will be immediately available to the user on their tablet/phone)

App which describes the world around you (designed for people with vision impairment)

Point the phone camera at:

- short typed or handwritten text (e.g. a greetings card) & it will speak it aloud

- whole documents & it will speak the text aloud

- barcodes & it will speak out the product name

- a scene & it will give an auditory description (e.g. busy street with people & cars)

NB there is a long delay before it detects and speaks out the text/scene 

Free app which describes the world around you (designed for people with vision impairment)

Point the phone camera at:

- short typed or handwritten text (e.g. a greetings card) & it will speak it aloud

- whole documents & it will speak the text aloud

- barcodes & it will speak out the product name

-  a scene & it will give an auditory description (e.g. busy street with people & cars)

- a person & it will describe them (e.g. a 40 year old, happy blonde woman). If the person has been saved in the user's photos, it will speak out their name.

- currency and it will speak out the amount

7 vocabulary sets are provided:

4 Basic: 4 cell basic vocabulary set

Communication Journey Aphasia: 12 cell  vocabulary set with adult & aphasia orientated vocab

MyCore: 108 cell categorised word bank for those with some literacy & good cognition & semantics

Spelling: 40 cell QWERTY keyboard with word prediction & phrase bank

VocabPC: 12 cell vocab set with activity vocab, category based vocab, carrier phrases

Multichat:15 cell vocab set in 3 versions: adult, adolescent, student. Contains activity vocab, category based vocab, questions & keyboard with word prediction

My Quickchat: 4, 8 & 12 cell layouts designed for AAC users. Adult & child versions available for each layout

3 versions available: Lite, full & full version with WordPower. Lite version doesn't speak & personalised pictures cannot be added - it's for evaluation purposes & couldn't really be used as a communication support

Other features:

Can be personalised with user's vocab & phrases. Pre-progammed vocab is American (e.g. purse for handbag)

User's photos can be used in place of symbols

Can use recorded or synthesised speech.  UK voices can be downloaded

Easy & intuitive to program

Word prediction on the keyboard is not the best available

Cueing app

Keyboard and topics list to help cue a conversation partner into speech by providing context through topic area and/or initial letter(s)

24 topic areas 

Numbers & keyboard (ABC/frequency layouts)

Laugh button to express pleasure, "huh?" button to express surprise/confusion

No message window so user cannot build a message, they are simply using the keyboard and topics to cue someone into their speech

Supplier: Tactus

Reads text aloud, word & line highlighting. Option to reduce text area to improve focus. Option to use large font size. Supports PDF documents, ebooks, web pages.

Useful for those who need visual and/or auditory support when reading

Free trial available

Keyboard, word banks, phrase banks and word prediction

Type your message and speak it out

Voice is robotic

Brief description

• Free, text to speech app. You type in text and it reads it aloud.
• You can save your messages to use again,  instantly, without having to re-type your message