Several of our speech therapy apps use an automated text-to-speech voice to provide auditory stimuli, feedback on responses, and extra support for written text. These apps include:

• Number Therapy
• Conversation Therapy
• Portions of Advanced Comprehension Therapy
• Advanced Reading Therapy on iOS
• Portions of Advanced Naming Therapy
• Hints on Reading Therapy
• AlphaTopics as a setting for Letters and always on Topics

(Note: All other apps use recorded speech that cannot be changed.)

This automated voice gives each app added flexibility of using regional accents (US, UK, Australia, Ireland, etc.), selecting male and female options, and the ability to read back anything. This allows us to have more stimuli and supports than we could otherwise provide, all in a slimmer download (using fewer megabytes on your device).

Jump to the instructions for:

• Apple
• Android

Apple

Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t allow app developers to use the Siri voices in their apps. So if you have Siri selected as your default voice, you may hear a rather unpleasant male voice in your apps. You can change the voice by following these steps:

iOS 13 or newer

• Open the Settings app on your iPad or iPhone 
• Touch Accessibility
• Press Spoken Content

• Touch Voices

• Select English

• You may see that Siri is the default voice. If you want to change it, select another voice, such as Samantha

• Be sure to select a voice – you’ll see the checkmark; press the download button to add an enhanced voice, and preview the voice with the play button
• When you have selected a voice, you’ll see the check next to it

iOS 12

1. Open the Settings app on your iPad or iPhone 
2. Touch General, then Accessibility
3. Press Speech
4. Touch Voices
5. Select English
6. You may see that Siri is the default voice. If you want to change it, select another voice, such as Samantha
7. Be sure to select a voice – you’ll see the checkmark; press the download button to add an enhanced voice, and preview the voice with the play button
8. When you have selected a voice, you’ll see the check next to it

Now you should be able to go into your apps and hear the voice you have selected.

Please Note: These instructions are for North American users. You can make adjustments to other accents as well, but it just won’t be Samantha.

Android

Google’s Speech Recognition and Synthesis is the default voice engine on many Android devices. This provides great accessibility features, including text-to-speech. If your device is running Android 9 or lower, you may need to download Google's Speech Recognition and Synthesis app from the Google Play Store. 

How to change the voice:

The only way to change the text-to-speech voice is to change the language/accent of the voice. Most voices should be high quality, but if they're not working for you, you can change the voice by following these steps:

• Open Settings menu - swipe down on your display to access your notifications shade and then tap the gear icon, or open the “Settings” app 
  
  
  
  
• Select Accessibility
  
  
  
  
• Tap Text-to-speech output
  
  
  
  
• Language/accent is set to the device language. You can change it by selecting Language.
  
  
  
  
• Select the language/accent you prefer
  
  
  
  
• Now the app will use your preferred voice

Please note: You may need to restart the app before the changes will take effect.

How to adjust the speech rate and pitch:

You can change the voice speech rate and pitch from the same screen that you change the language above:

• Open Settings menu - swipe down on your display to access your notifications shade and then tap the gear icon, or open the “Settings” app 
  
• Select Accessibility
• Tap Text-to-speech output
• Adjust the speech rate and pitch
• Touch Play to listen to your adjustments
  
  

Now you should be able to go into your apps and hear the changes you made.

Please note: There may be variations in steps, depending on the device and version of Android that you’re using. Try searching for 'Text-to-speech output'.