Methods and devices for enhancing fluency in persons who stutter employing visual speech gestures

Abstract

Methods, devices, and computer program products display visual choral speech to a patient who stutters or has a speech impediment or impairment as a visual stimulus for the patient to enhance the fluency of the patient. The visual choral speech is incongruous with the speech produced by the stutterer and is provided by a visual display of the articulatory movements of a person other than the patient (or a simulated representation thereof) of the person's lips and mouth as the person speaks. The visual speech gestures can be displayed to the patient in advance of a speaking event or speech production by the stutterer and/or concurrently with a speaking even (either intermittently or continuous during the speaking event). The visual choral speech gestures can be based on a string of coherent works to provide the visual speech gestures signal such that it is relayed to the user without the attendant auditory component allowing the user to speak at a substantially normal pace with enhanced fluency.