Helpful Tips for Friends and Family

Why Clear Speech is Important
Oticon has designed the Clear Speech™ program to help family and friends ease the handicap of hearing impairment.

Speakers tend to work only as hard as necessary to be understood by the typical, normal-hearing person. We tend to rush, drop a lot of unnecessary speech sounds, blur our words and not project our voices. When the environment becomes noisy, or when we try to communicate over a distance, we then make a greater effort because we have to. We instinctively know that we have to speak more deliberately, and we work harder to make ourselves understood.

By emphasizing the need to talk in a clear, precise and careful manner, definite changes occur in the acoustic structure of speech. Vowels are produced in a full and complete manner, consonants are longer and closer in amplitude to the vowels, word endings are not dropped. More pauses occur between phrases and sentences, speech is naturally louder and slower, key words are emphasized with distinct sentence stress patterns emerging. These changes are exactly what is necessary for a listener to better understand the spoken message. When combined with other well-known communication strategies, clear speech can make the difference between struggling and effortless conversation.

To learn more about Clear Speech, read “The Human Link Application Booklet”, or contact Oticon directly.

Simple but Effective Technique
Learning the Clear Speech™ program is easy. Clear speech is characterized by full, accurate, and precise production of each speech sound in each word. Each word in a sentence is fully produced. Word endings are not dropped. Natural voice stress and phrasing are retained. Sentences are not produced in a staccato, halting, exaggerated, or other unnatural manner.

Imagine that you are speaking to your family member who has hearing difficulties. I want you to speak as clearly and precisely as possible. Do not try to speak louder or slower. Rather, try to produce each word as accurately as you can.

Key Points to Remember
Clear Speech is:

• Accurate, precise, fully formed.

• Naturally slower, but do not attempt to speak slower. you will slow down as a natural result of your attempt to be clear.

• Naturally louder, but do not attempt to speak more loudly. You will raise your voice level as a natural result of your attempt to be clear.

• Lively, with a full range of voice inflection and stress on key words.

• Characterized by clear pauses between phrases and sentences.

• Characterized by emphasis of key words.

• Monotone

• Shouted

• Staccato

• Artificial

• Exaggerated

Now, Let's Practice

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