Speak Out June 2021

Better Rehab’s Georgia Cuskelly talks about voice banking and message banking, and shares how these innovative methods can help preserve a person’s personality and dignity. Georgia Cuskelly is a speech pathologist at Better Rehab. Better Rehab is a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) registered allied health provider delivering multidisciplinary rehabilitation services across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and the ACT. Based at Better Rehab’s Gold Coast office, Georgia completed a Bachelor of Speech Pathology at the Australian Catholic University (ACU) in Brisbane. Her interest in speech pathology was inspired by her sister’s experience with her speech pathology sessions. “I always tried to be involved and help her with her home activities, which sparked my interest,” Georgia said. “I paired that with my love of communicating and interacting with other people, and have not looked back.” Voice banking and message banking are methods to support communication for those at risk of losing their voice. Preserving a person’s voice, according to Georgia, is also a way of preserving their identity, personality and dignity. What is voice banking and message banking? Voice banking is a method of recording a large inventory of a person’s speech to create a synthetic (computerised) version of speech which approximates their natural speech. Message banking is a pool of pre-recorded messages using a person’s natural speech. A person can later "retrieve" a message where the message continues to sound just like them. How did voice banking and message banking become your passion? As a speech pathologist, I have a natural passion for communication. I stand by the notion that your ability to communicate; however that may be, makes up a major part of your identity. I work within the disability sector and have a large population of participants with a motor neurone disease diagnosis. Due to the nature of this diagnosis, so many of them want a way to preserve their personality and dignity. Many who have already experienced a deterioration were not satisfied with the quality of the voice generated through their communication device. After doing my research, I found that message banking and voice banking were the most effective ways to preserve that dignity and personality, and helped the participants achieve their goals. It is often the first thing I talk about to my participants now. Voice banking and message banking

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How do you offer support in voice banking and message banking? My role through the banking process looks very different for each person. Depending on the person’s diagnosis, external supports, or comfort level with technology, it often means I can be involved as little or as much as they need me to be. I like to take the time to upskill the participant and their family and friends so they can complete the process comfortably at home. Once the banking process is complete, I work with the participant to put their recorded messages onto a communication device and support them to use their device functionally. What do you think will be future innovations in this space? I believe that the growth of message banking and voice banking is going to take us by surprise. There are new programs bringing out more accessible, inclusive ways to provide people with the option of completing banking. I would love to see this continue. I think the future will show us a more inclusive selection of voices, suiting a range of different people across a range of different ages, genders and nationalities, so each person can find something which suits their personality, if message banking is not an option. I also think the accessibility of how we use the banked messages can only improve. At the moment, I use the banked messages mostly on a tablet; however, we are slowly applying them to phones and home systems. Unrelated to innovation, I would also like to see more acceptance of voice banking programs within the community as well, that is, accepting a synthetic voice or message banked voice as naturally as we would a "typical voice". This is for those who still want to be able to work or advocate on behalf of themselves, such as when they apply for loans or become a professional speaker. I believe the current biggest limitation we are facing is Awareness and acceptance of voice and message banking

awareness. If we can create more exposure maybe this will reach people who are currently without a suitable system.

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Speak Out | June 2021