Assisting Persons with Speech Impairments
My name is Ellen Trimble, and I am emailing the CIL’s as I serve as your representative for the Virginia Relay Advisory Council.
At the August 21, 2007, Virginia Relay Advisory Council meeting in Staunton, I was asked to inform all of the CIL’s about the need to promote Speech to Speech Relay Services. Persons who are Deaf and persons who are profoundly hard of hearing are making use of the service, however persons who are speech impaired are not using the service as much. As you know, making a phone call yourself promotes independence. So we need to get the word out to our consumers.
Speech to Speech Relay is a service of Virginia Relay. There is no cost for the service unless a long distance call is made.
Any person with a speech disability can access Speech to Speech Relay. If the person does not have intelligible speech they may use an augmented communication device or a TTY (which is normally thought of as being used for persons who are Deaf).
When the person who has sppech difficulties uses the service they are asked if they want the operator to speack for them or only words that the person has great difficulty with. Trainers are available to teach persons how to use this valuable resource, through the VA Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Outreach. 1-800-552-7917. The operators keep all conversations completely confidential.
Ellen G. Trimble
Coordinator, Deaf and HoH Services
Resources for Independent Living
804-353-6503 V
804-353-6583 TTY
