‘I want a voice that fits me’: teenager’s quest for communication help with Walsall accent | Walsall

Daniel Challis was born and introduced up close to Walsall, surrounded by members of the family with distinctive regional accents. But his communication help sounds nothing like them, as an alternative vocalising in a robotic model of acquired pronunciation. The 18-year-old, who has cerebral palsy and is unable to talk, is interesting for individuals to audition to offer his new voice – if they've the suitable accent.

“I feel uncomfortable when using my current voice and I want to sound like people around me,” stated Challis. “It’s very important to me because if I wasn’t disabled, I would not be using a computer to communicate.”

He was impressed to launch his attraction by the comic and Britain’s Obtained Expertise winner Lee Ridley, identified by his stage identify Misplaced Voice Man, who final yr modified the voice on his speech app to a geordie accent.

“When you look at Lee speaking with that accent, it’s like it’s part of him,” stated Challis’s mom, Sarah. “I think Daniel just wants the same, to sound like the people around him, like he should have sounded. He would have gone to the local school and would have picked up a local accent, but he’s got this robotic one instead.”

Challis, who is a big Harry Potter fan, has requested for anybody to send in an audio clip of themselves studying the primary few traces of Harry Potter and the Thinker’s Stone. He'll then whittle them all the way down to a shortlist earlier than deciding who he thinks is the most effective match.

“It’s about finding what he believes he sounds like, because it might be different to what I think,” stated his mom. “I’m being quite open because I think he’s got to be able to choose whatever he wants.”

The chosen individual must spend a variety of hours in a recording studio to ensure that their voice to be captured in sufficient element to be loaded on to the speech programme.

“It’s a long process so whoever gives Daniel their voice is obviously also giving their time to create that voice. Whoever that is, it’s going to be really special to Dan,” stated Sarah Challis. “I think it might sound quite weird if they were able to meet afterwards and both talk together.”

Daniel Challis stated he thought his new voice “will feel strange to start with and will take time to get used to, but it will feel amazing.”

He lives together with his household within the city of Aldridge, simply north-east of Walsall, and stated he was on the lookout for a neighborhood accent and “a more natural voice that fits me”.

The communication help he makes use of to talk operates utilizing eye-gaze expertise, that means he selects letters, phrases and customary phrases utilizing his eyes, that are then transformed into spoken sentences.

“There must be people all over the country that have all got communication aids, that maybe all want to look at having their own accent and their own identities,” his mom stated. “Daniel is going to residential college in September where there are going to be people from different parts of the country, and he wants to sound like he comes from where he comes from, and not a robot.”