Tamil Nadu: Health minister opens lab for speech, voice disorders

Chennai: A computerised lab for assessing speech and voice disorders was inaugurated at College of Speech and Hearing in the institute of otorhinolaryngology at the Madras Medical College by health minister C Vijayabaskar on Wednesday.

The lab will be a gold standard for accurate capture and playback of acoustic signals of speech and voice production. "Besides helping people assess and plan speech therapy for cochlear implant children, autism and cerebral palsy, the lab can be used for voice identification in forensic studies,” said hospital dean Dr Therani Rajan.

Up to 6% of children below 14 and 9% of adults have voice disorders and up to 9% of them suffer from speech disorders. “The lab will be useful to hundreds of patients with voice and speech disorders,” he said. He also distributed hearing aids to children with hearing impairment and the elderly after inaugurating the deafness week celebrations.