Nothing beats a full-size binaural (two ears) headset for maximizing fluency. Use the headset in a speech clinic, for home therapy practice, and for telephone calls. Or use the headset in noisy environments, as the noise-canceling microphone rejects background noise.
The microphone can be cleaned with alcohol wipes between clients. We can also provide washable headphone covers. The weight is 4.3 ounces (122 grams).
A Sennheiser PC131 headset is included with every device.
Wireless Hearing Aids
If you wear hearing aids, your stuttering treatment device can transmit wirelessly to your ears. We have a customer who'd lost his hearing in one ear. He tried a SpeechEasy hearing aid-style anti-stuttering device but returned it because that device occluded his hearing in his good ear. Then he went to a speech and hearing clinic that we recommended. The dual-degree audiologist/speech-language pathologist looked at his hearing chart and found that his bad ear was aidable. She fitted his bad ear with a hearing aid. She selected a Phonak hearing aid with an FM receiver. She then rubber-banded a credit card-size Phonak FM transmitter to our SmallTalk. He also wore a lapel microphone. She put nothing in his good ear. The result was fluent speech and he could hear with both ears! And all this cost less than his SpeechEasy.
Another customer is a priest with Parkinson's disease. He started using our Pocket Fluency System in 1998. His hearing aids have telecoil receivers so his audiologist plugged an inexpensive ($58) telecoil neckloop transmitter into his Pocket Fluency System. He also wore a lapel microphone. Thus much-loved priest was able to continue doing weddings, funerals, and masses for five years past when he thought he'd have to retire.
Have your audiologist call us. FM wireless is expensive ($2000+ for transmitter and receiver) but works well, sounds good, and the transmitters are small. In contrast, telecoil inductive transmitters are inexpensive but bulky and have poor performance.
Hearing aid receivers don't work with throat microphones unless you use a FAF upshift (we recommend FAF upshifts only for Parkinson's, not for stutterers). The frequency range of hearing aids is typically 200-8000 Hz. Throat microphones are around 125 Hz, for adult males.
In a noisy environment nothing can beat a throat microphone. A throat microphone picks up your vocal fold vibrations (phonation) clearly, without distortion. This sounds different from the sound picked up by a headset or other air-transmission microphone. Sounds produced by your lips, jaw, and tongue (your articulators) are muffled and weak. Your vocal fold vibrations are loud and clear. This is of great value if your speech-languge pathologist has trained you to use gentle onsets or to relax your vocal folds when speaking. We recommend the Iasus Noise Terminator NT3 Throat Microphone with PC Cable (about $85, includes monaural clear plastic acoustic eartube earset, call us for binaural acoustic eartubes). The microphone is usually worn in the hollow at the base of the throat and is hidden if you wear a shirt with a collar.
