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

[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".

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...

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.

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.

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!