Stuttering Devices

Studies have shown that altered auditory feedback (including delayed auditory feedback, frequency-altered feedback) as provided by devices such as the Casa Futura School DAF machine or SpeechEasy can immediately reduce stuttering by 40 to 80 per cent in reading tasks.

Early altered auditory feedback devices were large and thus confined to the laboratory or therapy room, but advances in electronics have permitted increasingly portable devices such as Derazne Correct phone, the Edinburgh Masker, the Vocaltech Clinical Vocal Feedback Device, the Fluency Master and the SpeechEasy. [The high-profile promotion in the media of devices such as the "SpeechEasy" has been criticized as inappropriate given the lack of scientific evidence for their effectiveness.

Another study examining the effects of the SpeechEasy in more naturalistic situations (conversation and asking questions of strangers outside the clinic) found that the SpeechEasy failed to show a significant effect following 6 months of use, though individual subjects varied in their response.

Several studies have produced group results that stutterers using the SpeechEasy show greater reductions in reading than for monologue and conversation. While one group study has reported continued overall reductions in stuttering after a year of daily use of the SpeechEasy on reading and a monologue task, others have found that some participants showed adaptation effects, gaining less benefit from the device after exposure for several months, including stuttering more with the device than without it.

What the already reported data shows is that when used in conjunction with conventional therapy, the SpeechEasy AAF device enhances the rate of progress among patients, and is a valuable new tool for SLPs to consider in concert with other therapeutic options.
If the SpeechEasy is being marketed as a cure, that is wrong, but as a tool, it is very helpful.