Vocal Solutions: Meet Elise and Valentin, the French voices designed for children with autism and specific needs, created by Acapela Group

Acapela Group, the expert in vocal solutions, is expanding its portfolio of solutions dedicated to young people with two new children’s voices: Elise and Valentin, developed with AssistiveWare, the leader in AAC applications for iOS.

In France and Belgium, more than 530 000 people have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is estimated that one birth in 150 is affected by ASD and that 80% of French children with autism are not sent to school.

Autism was declared a national cause in France in 2012 and awareness campaigns have changed the way many people think about this disorder, but there is still a long way to go.

 

For World Autism Acceptance Month (April 2016), Apple unveiled an inspiring video introducing Dillan, an autistic teenager using an iPad and an application vocalized by Acapela Group voices.

 

AAC solutions combined with tablets have revolutionized the industry, allowing the development of innovative approaches to help people with specific needs achieve greater autonomy. The voice synthesis developed by Acapela gives users the means to better interact with the people around them.

A unique repertoire

After American English, British English, Australian English, German, Swedish and the bilingual voices American English/ North American Spanish, our portfolio now counts 16 voices made by and for children.

Since 2012 these voices have enabled children with specific needs to interact socially, communicate, learn and read, to use an authentic voice that finally sounds their age and with which they can identify.

Many children have already adopted these voices by using AAC solutions such as Proloquo2Go, they use an appropriate interface and a voice they like. Their daily lives, as well as those of their relatives and friends, have improved enormously.

Now, French speaking children will also have the possibility to express themselves, with Elise or Valentin voices.

This is another new step for Acapela Group and we will continue to develop children’s voices in the years to come.

Made by and for children

The development of the children’s voices has required tremendous education and specialized work from our experts. The demanding steps for the creation of a professional synthetic voice have been adapted to a child’s habits and behaviour. When recording an adult, recordings have to be homogeneous throughout the sessions, from one day to the next. It is clearly impossible to ask the same of children. Our R&D team had to rethink and adapt the process for young speakers. And as you can hear below the results are pretty good! Our children’s voices are used daily by thousands of kids throughout the world and that is the best proof that we are on the right track.

Specific recordings of children’s typical exclamations and sounds enable us to create an even more natural spontaneous audio result.

Listen to voice samples

• Elise
• Valentin

Learn more about the children voices on this dedicated web page.