• Listing of area doctors
• Resources for seniors
• Emergency numbers
• National Library of Medicine
• Healthfinder: Your guide to reliable health information


Update 7/5/05
• Hypnosis can help smokers quit
• Healthy eating doesn’t have to include meat
• Brain scans to determine memory loss debated
• Heat and humidity can be deadly

Health Archive
• Washing hands key to keeping germs at bay
• Determination is woman’s tonic for adversity
• Many don’t know mental illness treatable, beatable
• Stretching can help keep sports-loving youngsters injury free
• Gardening’s rewards reaped even by beginners
• Assertiveness yields self-respect, respect from others
• Teaching children restraint can help fight obesity
• Training strengthens seniors mentally, physically
• Device to help stutterers yields dramatic results
• Healthy eating a lifestyle, not a ‘diet’
• Thinking outside the (lunch)box
• Skipping breakfast can hurt kids’ learning ability
• Facing source of anxiety can help banish fears
• Secondary infertility always frustrating, often treatable
• Hand-washing a habit best learned early
• Pool safety demands year-round vigilance
• Proper sleep, diet, fewer activities can ease kids’ stress
• Caution required to keep picnic food safe
• Breaking from routine important for mental health
• Early, frequent visits can help calm kids’ dentistry fears
• Make safety first priority when grilling
• Genetics, personality play major roles in addictions
• Hepatitis C more common than most people realize
• Good housekeeping can help fight indoor allergies
• Solid friendships take work, but the rewards are worth it
• Easing into fitness routine can limit injuries
• Proper treatment can guard pets, kids against parasites

Device to help stutterers yields dramatic results

By Alicia Castelli
Special to The Times

People frequently take the simple things in life for granted, but try to imagine what your life would be like if you could not communicate with other people. The approximately 3 million Americans who stutter struggle daily just to be understood. A new device is giving them hope.

Susan Matthews, 34, of Newport, has been struggling with this very problem for most of her life. Her mother, Sandy Matthews, noticed the problem when Susan was 6 or 7 years old.

“I had bad days,” Susan said. “I couldn’t talk.”

Thanks to a new device called SpeechEasy, now she can.

Stephen Wilson, owner of Wilson Hearing Centres, has offices throughout southeast Ohio and specializes in hearing and speech problems. He began offering SpeechEasy to his clients about a year ago. Susan got hers in October.

It’s hard to imagine the isolation someone with a stuttering problem feels, Wilson said.

“Most of the time they remain silent because of their problem.” Add to that the frustration of not being understood, the erroneous assumption that someone who stutters is less intelligent somehow than other people, and the tendency of some people to finish their sentences in a misguided attempt to help, and you get a better idea of what people who stutter must deal with every day.

SpeechEasy is a barely noticeable electronic device that is fitted to a patient’s ear. The device delays the time the sound of the speaker’s voice reaches his or her ear by between 60 and 120 milliseconds, and also changes the pitch of the voice so that the brain is tricked into thinking the person is speaking in concert with someone else.
“In the treatment of someone with a stuttering problem,” Wilson explained, “it has been known for a long time that when they say something in unison with someone else, like the Pledge of Allegiance or when they sing in a choir, they don’t stutter nearly as much. This is referred to as choral speech. SpeechEasy delays the time between when something is spoken and when it arrives back to the speaker’s ear. This helps stop stuttering.”

Jessica Keith, a speech therapist for Wilson Hearing Centres, has a master’s degree and a certificate of clinical competence. She evaluates new patients for the severity of their stuttering and then decides on the time delay and the change of pitch to be programmed into each customer’s SpeechEasy device. Should the client’s brain become “used to” the device and begin stuttering again, the pitch and frequency can be readjusted. This has not been the case with previous versions of the stuttering aid. Several patients have been using their device for a couple of years now, and their brains are still being tricked, Keith explained.

“I have noticed immediate and remarkable reduction in stuttering with our clients,” Keith said. “I cannot believe the change. Some people can regain 90 percent fluency immediately. It’s tearful every time a new person comes in.”

Sandy Matthews noticed just such a drastic change in her daughter’s speech.

“She has a severe stuttering problem,” Sandy said. “Prior to this device, her non-fluency was 70 percent, meaning when she spoke, she stuttered 70 percent of the time. After the device was put in, her non-fluency went down to 20 percent, and as she works with the device, it’s gone down further to about 17 percent.”

“It’s easier to meet new people,” Susan said of the change SpeechEasy has made in her life. “I can talk better.”

Sandy remembers the difficulties of school for her daughter.

“She attended special classes, but they had a hard time pigeon-holing her,” Sandy said. “I’m sure she knew things, but because of the speech problem, she couldn’t express herself.”

Sandy also noticed how the device has helped her daughter at work, has allowed her to become more social, and has boosted her self-confidence.

“SpeechEasy looks like a hearing aid,” Wilson said. “It comes in three sizes or styles. There is a small, behind-the-ear version that looks like a hearing aid. Another version fits in the ear and is about the size of the tip of your finger. The smallest version fits relatively deeply into the ear with just the face showing.”

“The device itself, including all visits and fittings can cost between $3,000 and $5,000,” Keith said. “We have some school systems that are willing to pay for it, and the insurance companies are receptive to paying for the professional fees involved, although they do not pay for the device itself yet.”

The procedure includes hearing and stuttering evaluations, device demonstration and counseling, device prescription, ear mold impression, custom fitting and follow-up.

The youngest client to be fitted with SpeechEasy was just 8 years old, Wilson said, while the oldest was a 76-year-old man who’d had a severe stuttering problem all his life. After being fitted with SpeechEasy, the man began telling a favorite story that he’d never been able to get through before because no one had had the patience to wait while he struggled through the telling of it. When he realized he was finally telling this story without stuttering for the first time in his life, the man broke down and cried.

“This is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever participated in,” Wilson said.

SpeechEasy was developed by three speech/language pathologists from East Carolina University, one of whom had a severe stuttering problem himself. While the technology has been around for more than 50 years, until now, it could not be made small enough to fit inside the ear, Keith explained.

“It was a genuine blessing to be able to work with these individuals and see such significant results so quickly — up to 90 percent regained fluency immediately,” Keith said. “This is exactly why I entered this profession. I love this work. It’s so rewarding.”