I am excited to share a new, free, online tool called MessageBanking.com.  It has resulted in more of my clients with ALS banking their voice and doing so with ease and much less training.  16 years as the speech therapist at the Forbes Norris ALS Research & Treatment Center has taught me the value of message banking but also made it clear that message banking can be confusing and overwhelming for many.  “What do I record?”, “What tools do I need?”, “What audio format should I record in?”, “What is the best bitrate”, “What is the best recorder?”, and “What do I do with the recordings when I am done?”

The developers at Clever Monkey and I created MessageBanking.com to help people through every step of the message banking process.  We included messages that people with ALS, caregivers and speech therapists have found to be useful and meaningful. 

MessageBanking.com is easy to use. A “Record” button below each message allows users to quickly record any message suggestions that resonate with them. Users can also create their own custom messages.  These might include signature or humorous remarks, work/interest related questions or comments, and messages specific to friends and loved ones.

A single “Download” button places all of the labeled messages in a folder on the user’s computer or storage device.  Later these messages can be transferred to any speech-generating device (e.g. Tobii’s I-Devices, Talk to Me Tech’s Zuvos, FRS’s Winslates, etc.) or to a text-to-speech app that plays audio files (e.g. digital Wav or MP3 files). 

Clever Monkey Development and I have also just released a Windows communication app for people with ALS called AlphaCore. Messages recorded in MessageBanking.com can easily be transferred to AlphaCore by clicking AlphaCore’s “Import” button.  With this single step, message buttons in AlphaCore will play their corresponding recordings.  This eliminates the time consuming steps of creating each message button and then adding the recording.  

Please check out MessageBanking.Com and let patients and families know about it.  I will be providing more info in the coming weeks on the AlphaCore text to speech app for Windows.  

Please contact me with any questions about MessageBanking.com or if you are interested in a demonstration copy of the AlphaCore app for your center. I’m also happy to share a client handout that explains Message and Voice Banking.