| FACT SHEET ON TELEPHONE ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH SPEECH DISABILITIES |
| If you have a speech disability and live in one of the sixteen states listed below (or in either Australia or Sweden)you can now use a new, free telephone assistance service 24 hours a day. This service, called Speech-to-Speech (STS), provides communications assistants (CAs) for people with difficulty being understood by the public on the telephone. The FCC recently ruled that STS must be available nationwide in March 2001. STS will be provided through the TTY relay in each state. Unlike TTY, STS enables people with speech disabilities to communicate by voice through a CA as many people with speech disabilities have difficulty typing. People with speech disabilities can dial toll free to reach a patient, trained CA who is familiar with many speech patterns and has excellent language recognition skills. This CA makes telephone calls for them and repeats their words exactly in a 3-way calling environment. Every month users make about 6,000 calls nationally. STS is the only way for many people to telephone others not accustomed to their speech. Many STS users have Parkinson's disease, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, or Muscular Dystrophy. Other users stutter or have had a laryngectomy or ALS. STS also helps some speech synthesizer users. Dr. Bob Segalman has cerebral palsy and developed the concept of STS. Now it makes telephone use much easier for him. To try out STS, report problems or get more information: Call 800-854-7784 and ask for Dr. Bob Segalman (direct #916-263-8689). Or e-mail him at: [email protected] . Ask Bob to add your name to the STS List Serve. See also the STS web site: http://stsnews.com / |
| Here are the U. S. Speech-to-Speech access numbers: ARIZONA 1-800-842-6520 MINNESOTA 1-877-627-3848 UTAH 1-888-346-5822 NEVADA 1-888-326-5658 MARYLAND 1-800-785-5630 WASHINGTON 1 877 833 6341 GEORGIA 1-800-229-5746 WISCONSIN 1 800-833-7637 CS* 1-800-682-8706 CS* 1-800-283-9877 CALIFORNIA 1-800-854-7784 ILLINOIS 1-877-526-6690 CS* 1-800-735-0373 KENTUCKY 1-888-244-6111 SOUTH CAROLINA 1-877-735-7277 NORTH CAROLINA 1-877-735-8261 SOUTH DAKOTA 1-877-981-9744 TEXAS 1-877-826-6607 STS/VCO 1-877-826-6608 NEW MEXICO 1-888-659-3952 |
| Australia provides STS. Contact: [email protected] (Tom McCaul). Sweden has just extended it's STS trial for one year. Contact: [email protected] (Inga Svanfeldt) |