Ear Gizmo Helps Stop Stuttering

gregger writes "This little thing that looks like a hearing aid is called a "Speecheasy." It sits in your ear and creates something called the "choral effect" which in essence echoes what the wearer is saying. The real choral effect (i.e. when you recite something in a group like pledges of allegiance or other dark rituals) seems to help people that stutter speak more fluently. The price for this thing is quoted in the KRON TV story as being between $3,600 - $5,100. Porky Pig's insurance won't buy it for him either."

Comments

Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[GuyMannDude]

The price for this thing is quoted in the KRON TV story as being between $3,600 - $5,100. Porky Pig's insurance won't buy it for him either.

Why the hell should someone expect that medical insurance would cover something like this? I have no doubt that people who stutter face prejudice but this isn't really something that insurance should be required to pay for. Insurance doesn't pay for my eyeglasses and I need that a hell of a lot more than someone needs an anti-stuttering device.

I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone and I want to stress that I do feel sympathy for those afflicted with this condition. However, I do not approve of this mindset where people assume that insurance ought to pay for any tiny little medical-related thing they want. The cost of insurance is already pretty outrageous. And things are so bad that people who have serious illnesses can't afford coverage. The last thing we need is for insurance to start shelling out 1000s of dollars for stuff like this. Next thing you know, people will want cosmetic surgery like breast implants or LASIK to be covered because they feel these proceedures will contribute to their "well being".

GMD

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[agrounds]

okay, I'll bite. By this rational what should be covered? The rising costs of medical insurance is fed entirely by the medical industry. It's a vicious circle that only winds up raping the people in the end. The medical industry in the US is a financial shambles. I paid $860 for a two-block ambulance ride a couple of years ago. That's 2 (two) blocks. No life-saving procedures, no fancy equipment used. Just me, sitting on a stretcher nursing a scalp laceration next to an EMT and bitching out the drunk driver that had just totalled my car. $860? I paid $3500 for my son to have an MRI. Why? Because he had fallen and given himself a nice black eye and a bloody nose. I protested the procedure, and was told that if I interfered with the procedures, I would be asked to leave the hospital as AMA (Against Medical Advice) with no further treatment rendered. This is the real reason mine and your insurance rates go up. Not because people want frivolous (of which this device is -not-) procedures covered, but because the industry has raised the rates to exorbitant levels in an effort to line their own pockets. I honestly don't know how these people sleep at night. You'd think someone in a position of authority would do something, but it's hard to stab your campaign contributors in the back I suppose.

Fuck that. This should be covered, along with LASIK, hearing aids, braces, birth control, and anything else that is not purely cosmetic. My $773 a month in insurance premiums should damn well cover anything I want to improve my direct quality of life.

Don't blame the people that want something to help with their debilitations, blame the industry that sets the financial bar too high with no recourse.

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[macdaddy357]

th-th-th-th-th this i-i-i-i-i is c-c-c-c cool. Wh-wh-wh- when c-c-c can I g-g-g-g-get 0ne?

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[Strange Ranger]

GuyMannDude - WAY off.
agrounds - closer but no.

Do not blame doctors for lining their own pockets. 3 groups take all the blame: The American Medical Association, Health Insurance, and Lawyers.

Lawyers: Because every hospital AND every doctor has to have multimillion dollar liability/lawsuit protection. This is why you agrounds, were asked to get with their program or leave. Their insurance company requires that they operate this way. Their lawyers require it. They have to protect themselves from lawsuits. That's why the Ambulance ride cost so much, because they need to be insured against lawsuits. To make matters worse, they have to do everything 3 times and get concurrency/agreement from other doctors all to ward off the lawsuits. So not only are you paying for insurance, you're paying for more doctors time and more procedures all to protect against lawsuits. There goes well over half of your $773 / mo. In this case, it's the legal system that has failed us, not doctors or the medical system.

Health Insurance: Even though drug Foo2 is the best, fastest cure, and the one your doctor actually prescribed to begin with, in order to get coverage you must try drug Foo1 for 60 days first to see if it works because its far cheaper, and hey, it might work, or you might drive off a cliff during those 2 months, either way the insurance co avoids paying for the high cost drug. The stockholders win, the patient loses. OR, you go two months with ineffective meds and you have to pay 2 months of copay to the pharmacist for something you don't even want. The Insurance co ends up covering both drugs, but hey, they only need their strategy to succeed 1 time in 50 for the numbers to work in their favor, because another large hunk of your $773/ mo bill is used to subsidize the priciest 1% of drugs that a few other people need. Don't blame the doctors.

The AMA: Arguably one of the most self-serving immoral group of shucksters ever to organize. The original purpose of the AMA was to lobby for laws that made prescriptions a requirement. Back in the late 1800's before antibiotics, doctors could do about 2 things, set broken bones, and alleviate pain. Got pneumonia? Take some morphine. If you had no broken bones, the only way to get you to go pay a doctor for something was to require BY LAW that you get a prescription for the pain reliever. The next evil thing the AMA did was to make law school extremely selective, long, difficult, and expensive Why does it cost more to become a medical doctor than it does to become a doctor of organic chemistry? Lab fees?? Heck no. Simple, the less doctors there are the more demand there is so the more they can charge. Why does a podiatrist have to learn all about the mucus system and neuro-chemical pathways in the brain, but has to learn almost nothing about nutrition? Simple, to keep the number of podiatrists down. If nutrition was complex enough and had its own arcane language you can bet it would be required as well. Why does an Ear, Nose, & Throat doctor need to learn all about the ovaries? Same reason. That's why medical school takes so damn long. That's why you have to wait months to get in to see a dermatologist. Because there aren't many people who can get into, afford, and then survive the schooling. So there are far too few doctors. Granted that some of this is warranted is some cases, brain surgery for instance. But the process to become a podiatrist or a dermatologist should be nowhere near as long and arduous as the process to become a neurosurgeon. Yet it is for the most part. Low Supply + High Demand = High Price. You ever hear of doctors competing on price?? No way. It's not really their fault though, that's just the way the market works in their case. In fact it's so out of hand now that a cheap doctor isn't thought of as benevolent, he's thought of as a third-rate hack! 99% of doctors, 99% of the medical industry, are not to blame her

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[rickwood]

While insurance coverage (or the lack thereof) isn't really the topic at hand, I submit the following article for your perusal vis a vis "The Health Insurance Situation":

http://www.guerrillanews.com/corporate_crime/doc20 01.html

The article details the 1996 testimony in front of the congressional Health and Environment committee of Dr. Linda Peeno. To quote from the introduction,

Dr. Linda Peeno is a former medical reviewer for Humana, a large health insurance provider based in Louisville, Kentucky. While working for Humana, Dr. Peeno had an epiphany when she discovered that a sculpture of a tall, thin woman by Alberto Giacometti - which was displayed in the rotunda of the company's Louisville HQ from 1987 to 1994 - cost $488,000. It was roughly the same amount as the cost of a heart transplant for a Humana patient for which she had recently denied payment on a technicality, according to a recent article in The New York Times.

Obviously this site has an agenda of its own, and I can't say I agree with their conclusions on every matter. In this case however, I believe they have a valid point to make concerning the nature of the health insurance industry.

And to try to add at least an air of topicality to this post, I did notice one thing: this device seems very expensive, even taking into account that it is a medical device and subject to stricter regulations. Hopefully increased production will drive the cost and thus the price down. From what I understand from other posters who have suffered from stuttering, this little thing is like an answer to a prayer. I would hope that every child that needs one will get one, even if they are poor, or their stuttering is a "pre-existing condition".

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[Anonymous Coward]

keyboard stuttering is usually caused by a too-high repeat rate :)

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[DrMorpheus]

While I agree with 99.99% of your post this statement of yours:

Do not blame doctors for lining their own pockets. 3 groups take all the blame: The American Medical Association...

is a non sequitur. The AMA consists of doctors so yeah, I'm going to blame doctors!

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[Anonymous Coward]

If you got to the end..

"...99% of the medical industry, are not to blame here. Just the active members of the AMA and their predecessors."

Should have said "leading members and policy setting staff of the AMA" instead of just "active members". An MD who pays $420 a year for JAMA, discounted medical supplies, and a free web page doesn't count as culpable in my opinion. There are many many good doctors out there who's only interests are helping people and paying off loans.

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[DrMorpheus]

I don't want to come across as flaming, because mostly I agree with what the parent post is stating, BUT (and it's a big one)...
I bet that the, "MD who pays $420 a year for JAMA, discounted medical supplies, and a free web page" probably agrees with the whole AMA platform. S/he certainly doesn't disagree enough to attemp any policy changes, that's for sure.
In any case I'm not so sure that the culpability of your average AMA member is so clear cut, especially since they financially benefit from the current policies. In fact I think you might be hard pressed to find a member who doesn't whole heartedly support what the AMA is doing.

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[fille]

For comparison: yesterday, there was an item on the news that Belgian consumer organisations do not like the big price differences for ambulance rides (not in case of emergencies, these are included in social insurance). The price for a 40 km drive was between 40 and 170 Euro and these organisations want it to be lowered immediately. Quite a difference with the States..
Also note that almost everybody has an additional insurance for costs not covered by social insurance. It costs 40 Euro a year and it covers nearly all costs, including these ambulance rides and almost every other cost you can imagine. You can even get one if you already have a life-threatening disease! (At least at my union, the catholic one)

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno. Maybe you're right. Does it compare to an MSDN subscription though? Just because somebody has an MSDN subscription does that mean they agree with MS and support their business and marketing practices?

Then again I guess it's not the same thing because nobody spends 9 years in very difficult schooling to become a doctor of Microsoft. Hmmm..

Re:Insurance shouldn't pay for this

[tamills]

These are all nice ideas and appropriate in some ways. But the problem with insurance these days is the same problem everywhere. The economy is down. More specifically the market is down.

The main point: The insurance companies have lost a BOATLOAD of money in their investments and their investment incomes have dropped as well. So how do they make up their money? The can't get more investment income; that already sucks. So they raise premiums. We pay more for insurance. It sucks, but their business model is requiring it right now.

Don't get me wrong, insurance intrusion is wrong. It would also be wrong to allow necessary procedures to be swept aside by less necessary procedures. But the money problems with insurance are being driven by money problems in the market place. If you have lost ivestment money over the last few years, you have some idea what the insurance companies are feeling.

Sounds good.

[svenjob]

When I was learning how to overcome my st-st-studdering, one of the tricks I used was to write out what I was going to say on the phone and then have someone read along with me. It helped very much (80-90%). This device does pretty much the same thing. I feel this device has a lot of promise. The price is the only thing that needs work. Now if someone could figure out how to have something speak for you... Goodbye inner-monologue...

Re:Sounds good.

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess this proves that st-st-stuttering is all in your head (i.e. possibly a fear of public speaking and/or low self-esteem)?

I'm not a stutterer, but I do pick up a slight stutter for a day or so whenever I'm around someone who stutters a lot. It's quite annoying.

Oh yeah, and I also had to start over a few times when I took the standard test they give to military applicants. I wouldn't have had any trouble if it hadn't been a test, but this guy handed me a piece of paper and said "read it out loud." When I finally passed, he said that someone with a stuttering problem is incapable of ever reading it out loud without stuttering.

Re:Sounds good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuttering is not "possibly a fear of public speaking and/or low self-esteem" Stuttering is a real medical condition which definitely does bring down self-esteem, but I wouldn't say is caused by it.

Ob Fish Called Wanda

[FroMan]

Otto West:
It's K-K-K-Ken, c-c-c-coming to k-k-k-kill me! How are you going to c-c-c-catch me, K-K-K-Ken?

Re:Ob Fish Called Wanda

[Anonymous Coward]

in french

Re:Ob Fish Called Wanda

[FroMan]

Nope, nice try though. I wrote and meant "at". Deal with it.

Come to the dark side, Luke!

[orthogonal]

Through the use of Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) and Frequency Altered Feedback (FAF), SpeechEasy(TM) effectively creates the illusion of another person speaking in unison with the user. By emulating this 'choral speech' pattern, a SpeechEasy(TM) user can become 50 - 95% more fluent.

I don't stutter, but I want one.

So it sounds like (whisper it with me!) Darth Vader is speaking in unison with me!

<style="intimidating">"You'll get the code when it meets my standards, and not before."</style>

While I'm at it, I want a soundtrack -- say a marching band playing "Stars anbnd Stripes Forever", whenever I open my mouth.

It really works!

[nomel]

I saw this sometime last year on Oprah or something. It worked by making them sound like chipmunks to themselves. Some of the guys couldn't even say a complete sentence (which I consider very disabling), and when they put it on, they could talk fluently, almost without any sign of studdering. They were VERY happy people. In bad cases like that. I see no problem with insurance companies paying for it. It is a cure for a very bad disability (unlike breast implants, which are just for fun). It really doesn't cost that much either. Every time I've gone to the doctor or emergency room, it's cost well over $1500. The cost per happiness for the rest of their lives ratio is very high, which I consider worth it.

Re:It really works!

[phaze3000]

I agree, I hope they make this available on the National Health Service.

Re:It really works!

[Jackazz]

It is a cure for a very bad disability (unlike breast implants, which are just for fun).

This statement is not entirely correct, breast implants do have valid medical use and should be covered by medical insurance in many situations. Breast reconstructive surgery after radical mastectomy is a vital technology used to help decrease the stress of surgery in breast cancer patients.

Obviously I do agree that a device like this should be covered too, just like a wheelchair is covered for paraplegics.

Insurance should pay for this, maybe...

[SolemnDragon]

I stutter. It took years of speech therapy to learn not to, at a remarkably high cost- most of which was absorbed by the SCHOOL department. If they hadn't, I would still be stuttering all the time. I never could have learned to sing (As it was I took 14th place out of thousands of applicants in the statewide concert auditions in junior high. Learning not to stutter was tough, REALLY tough, and i still can't read aloud very well.)

It's not about mere discrimination. It's not about mere disability, although it can be a true disability- My uncle has a stutter so bad that he can barely talk. It takes a long time to get a sentence out. It has severely limited his employability and his lifestyle. It has to do with Money, with wage-earning potential, with the possibility of advancement. This translates into- you guessed it- taxpayer dollars.

In reference to your comment. I agree that LASIK probably shouldn't be covered by health insurance. Eyeglasses ARE covered under an increasing number of plans, though, and should be. (Eyeglasses also don't run into the thousands of dollars, for the most part.) Given the choice between spending $2000 max for this device, and having a person then shoot up an income bracket(or more) of employability, OR leaving the person to spend tens of thousands on speech therapy (have you added up the cost for ten years of learning how to control a stutter?) the US gov. gets off cheap if this can help. A severe stutter changes education, changes willingness to participate in experiences that their peers are involved in, and later in life it can make a college or job interview into hell. And here's the thing- it's now preventable. So when speech therapy isn't working, should health coverage take care of this? Heck, yeah!

This concept applies to a lot of things. It's cheaper for health coverage to buy me a wheelchair, or pay for part of the costs thereof, than to leave to try to buy one on my own- because it keeps me employable, keeps me paying for my own health insurance through work, keeps me paying income taxes. That's a pretty big deal, really. Eyeglasses should be covered for the same reason.

I've found that there are some cases where cosmetic surgery is justified and paid for by health coverage as a quality of life issue. If you view the speech improvement device as a prosthetic- making up for a quality that the person should have but doesn't- it's no different from covering, say, a hearing aid or an artificial voicebox. Or a prosthetic foot. If a person is disfigured or injured in a way which significantly decreases their odds of living a halfway decent life, health coverage will frequently cover the cost of alteration. For example, if a child is born with a severely receding lower jaw, as a friend of mine was, it was not considered cosmetic but reparative surgery. This extends to other forms of therapy- lots of health insurance covers mental therapy and medication for treatable mental illnesses. A stutter isn't a mental illness, it's a brain malfunction. SOmetimes speech therapy works great. Sometimes, as with my uncle, it doesn't help at all. I remember being a child and trying to have conversations with him, wondering whether i was going to end up like that, taking five minutes to finish a sentence. While LASIK could also be considered reparative surgery, it generally isn't because the prosthetics (eyeglasses) are socially accepted to the point of being a norm, contact lenses are available for cosmetic improvement over glasses, and both contacts and glasses are inexpensive enough that many health insurers already cover them. In some cases, free care even covers them. LASIK is also still fairly new. I know that breast implants can be covered in cases of masectomy. I would imagine that as LASIK gets cheaper and more reliable- there are still a lot of errors and i personally know two people who had serious complications (and twelve who had no complications at all)- there may well be insurance that covers it soon.

My main point here is that w

Re:Insurance should pay for this, maybe...

[GuyMannDude]

Interesting points. Thanks for your feedback.

GMD

Stuttering Darth Vader

[AtariAmarok]

Odd that you should mention Darth Vader. James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth and CNN, had a stuttering problem that he struggled to overcome in childhood.

Edinburgh masker

[wowbagger]

This idea is actually pretty old: Edinburgh Masker.

I saw this many years ago on The Tonight Show (back when they had competent and funny people on it, not like now), when they had Mel Tillis on. Mel put the ear piece in, switched it on, and stopped stuttering completely.

Of course, Mel Tillis without stuttering is like a flat-chested Dolly Parton.

EarGizmo? Orgazmo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if only it could stop Jizz Master Zero from being evil, we'd be onto something.

Miniaturization

[dbCooper0]

The cost is a little steep, but to make the device the size of a hearing aid, there's gotta be some considerable R&D (etc) involved.

Essentially, the "Choral Effect" is most likely the same pitch/time shifting technology that we musicians enjoyed since the 70s.

A variation on flangers, the chorus stomp-box was a welcome addition to guitar, keyboard, and vocals (etc.) - but it required a wall-wart or an almost endless supply of 9v batteries.

Sorry, but this is old

[ThinkingGuy]

I distinctly remember seeing a demonstration of this technology on the TV show "That's Incredible!" which would mean that it's at least 20 years ago. I think we have a case of "Company press release masquerading as news."
Still, this is great for people who would otherwise have difficulty functioning because of stuttering.

MHO

[wishes]

What i would object to would be the cost.
How expensive is it really to put together something that basicly amplifies the sound you have from your jawbone or mimics you even?
Heck they can do it on computers which costs a whole lot less than $3000, not to mention that a laptop does a heck of a lot more (play doom in class!)

My son has a whisper ear piece which was given to us free which pretty much does the exact same thing. It makes things louder that you put it near, (ie your mouth)

So who is getting all this money? some company who pulled a microsoft? (took somebody elses invention and called it their own)

I'm glad I live in NZ and hospitals are free, and docters are subsidised pretty much.

(ps no offence to microsoft fans)

Re:MHO

[ChrisMaple]

Custom IC, microphone, earpiece, battery, wiring, case. Total cost should be below $2 in volume; retail price below $20.

There are TOYS that do nearly the same thing.

Re:MHO

[Anonymous Coward]

But none of those toys has to fit completely inside your ear or be custom fitted to the wearer or pass FDA testing. My brother-in-law just got fitted with one of these. Fortunately, his insurance *did* cover it. The difference is absolutely amazing.

Re:MHO

[wishes]

But often they do fit inside your ear (the toys), andhow much can it cost to get one FDA test for millions of ear pieces? even at most they cant cost more than $100 each! some person is making a major killing at others misfortune.

Re:MHO

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I live in NZ and hospitals are free, and docters are subsidised pretty much.

Where do you think those subsidies comes from? Did the money just appear out of thin air?

Promotion for this thing if it works

[MonkeyBoyo]

If this device really works then the company should distribute downloadable emulations as an advertisement.

My PC came with a microphone, speakers, and headphones and it can run the trivial signal processing software. This is enough to test if the claims work.

Re:Promotion for this thing if it works

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the triviality of the signal processing, surely some clever chap out there could pull an Open Source manouvre and develop something similar?

Then at least stutter-suffering secretaries or lonely programmers could plug themselves in whenever they need to report to the Big Cheese via telephone.

OT: Flamebait?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay... what in the hell is going on with the moderations? GMD is usually opinionated, but this is hardly flamebait. To add insult to injury someone came along and added overrated mods to drop the post to score 0. I've seen quite a few of this mod pattern in the last few days. Anyone have any idea wtf is going on? Did they just get a new editor? Are the editors' wives/girlfriends/lovers moderating with editor privledges now? What's up? Inquiring minds want to know!

Well said!

[GCP]

I wholeheartedly agree.

Insurance should absolutely cover stuttering as it has the potential to cause serious, lifelong problems, yet it is highly treatable (meaning completely or almost completely cured in a high percentage of cases) if treated *immediately* at onset. (Interestingly, the treatment that needs to start immediately is an interesting twist on "do nothing", which sounds like a contradiction, but it's very important and not obvious.) Sometimes treatment doesn't solve the problem completely, but you have to try because the odds are pretty good that you'll get pretty good results if you act fast.

This is clearly one of those highly leveraged early treatments with huge payoffs over a lifetime. I speak from personal experience.

If you know of a child who has started stuttering, do a little research on the Web (Google "stuttering") to assess the problem (a little bit is natural, so see the professional guidelines) and as soon as the symptoms get near the "might be a problem" line, take the child to a speech patholgist at a real speech and hearing clinic for a consultation. DON'T WAIT!

100$ ? Really ... go build your own ..

[alch]

Lets see if you can pull it off. How much is a hearing aid ? Now put a mic on it, a mini-dsp for the delay, timing, feedback control - making sure you don't blow out the ear drum (ever had a Mosquito in your ear - it's hell !!).And then cram a battery in it so it will be usefull.

Oh yeah - don't forget to cover your egineering, marketing, tradeshows, testing, building, etc. Chances are these guys made a limited run of the core unit for 50-100K$, and then customise the shell for the user.

Things are only 2-4$ a run once you scale your manufacturng. But kt still won't be any lower than a hearing aid - the market s smaller.

Check out the mouse driver chronicles - and that's just a gadget !!!

And WHY...

[judowillreturns]

...do they need lawyers? Because the stupid, stupid people of the World don't understand that its hard to be in the medical profession. They don't understand what 60-percent-sucess-rate means.
You can be that if the ambulance crew junp into the river and swim to that drowning child, but she drows anyway, they get sued.
*sigh