‘Hear it for Yourself!’ Videos

The videos on this page let you hear spoken utterances created on SentenceShaper by people with different kinds of speech/language problems. Each begins with a recording of the person’s spontaneous, unaided speech, created WITHOUT the program, so you can hear the contrast with their SentenceShaper productions.

These videos show us how assistive technology can help people to make fuller use of their preserved abilities. They also demonstrate that people who struggle to put together spoken sentences can still be vibrant, engaged, human beings with complex ideas, a wide range of emotions, and a sense of humor. And, finally, they reveal the power of the human voice.

Lou Hyatt
This video contains excerpts from an interview (spontaneous speech) followed by a sample of Lou’s  SentenceShaper-aided speech

To play this video, click its play button on lower left. Click the “full screen” icon on lower right to see the video in full screen mode. If you don’t see and hear the video,  try refreshing the web page.


Lou Hyatt is a stroke survivor who has nonfluent aphasia and apraxia. The Snyder Center for Aphasia Life Enhancement (SCALE), in Baltimore, MD, is a pioneer in the use of technology for people with aphasia. At SCALE, Lou used SentenceShaper to create presentations for a travel class. Lou recorded each word individually, listened to it, and then re-recorded it to make sure it was intelligible. He and a helper added personal photos into SentenceShaper, to create a digital scrapbook that combined photos with his spoken comments. Text can also be added to the SentenceShaper screen, which can increase intelligibility for the listener. The text in this video was added by the helper. At SCALE, replica rolex explorer watches the students and volunteers may also help members by jotting down the key ideas they wish to express on each page. The member then expands each idea using SentenceShaper. (Video courtesy of Snyder Aphasia Center for Life Enhancement)

George Lalka
The video below contains an excerpt of George’s spontaneous speech followed by its Sentence Shaper-aided counterpart, along with a moving SentenceShaper production in which he offers romantic advice.

To play this video, click its play button on lower left. Click the “full screen” icon on lower right to see the video in full screen mode. If you don’t see and hear the video,  try refreshing the web page.


George Lalka (1948-2011) , a research chemist, developed aphasia following a brain injury. As the speech samples in this video demonstrate, his severe word-finding problems could make it hard for him to communicate, but the processing support from SentenceShaper opened a touching and unique window on his intelligence, dry humor, and compassion. During the years after his injury, he drew strength from his lifelong love of music and singing. Click here for a beautiful tribute to George by his many friends in the Joyful Noise Chorus.

Note: The speech samples in which he describes the same picture with and without SentenceShaper were elicited without any help from the clinician.

Roz Ellen
This video contains a sample of Roz’s spontaneous speech followed by excerpts from a SentenceShaper video tribute to her father.

To play this video, click its play button on lower left. Click the “full screen” icon on lower right to see the video in full screen mode. If you don’t see and hear the video,  try refreshing the web page.


Roz Ellen is a stroke survivor who has nonfluent aphasia. She uses SentenceShaper at the Snyder Center for Aphasia Life Enhancement (SCALE), in Baltimore, MD.  Although she has trouble creating full sentences in spontaneous speech, she is able to create multi-sentence narratives with SentenceShaper.  This video starts with a short clip of Roz’s unaided speech, then shows excerpts from a video that Roz created about her father. At SCALE, the students and volunteers may also help members by jotting down the key ideas they wish to express on each page. The member then expands each idea using SentenceShaper. The student volunteer also scanned in the photos and added the text captions after Roz created her speech. At SCALE, Roz has composed speeches on SentenceShaper, then used the SentenceShaper recordings (transferred to a mobile device) to cue herself while delivering the speech “live”. (Video courtesy of Snyder Aphasia Center for Life Enhancement)

Tom Charles
This video contains excerpts from an interview (spontaneous speech) followed by a sample of Tom’s SentenceShaper-aided speech.

To play this video, click its play button on lower left. Click the “full screen” icon on lower right to see the video in full screen mode. If you don’t see and hear the video,  try refreshing the web page.


Tom Charles is a stroke survivor who has nonfluent aphasia.  He uses SentenceShaper at the Snyder Center for Aphasia Life Enhancement (SCALE), in Baltimore, MD, which emphasizes the use of technology for social as well as therapeutic purposes. Tom is an expert SentenceShaper user, and will be featured in one of the “How to” videos we are creating to illustrate advanced techniques with the program. The productions he creates at SCALE are shared with other members and emailed to family and friends. The video featured here is a a congratulatory message to his just-married son.  (Video courtesy of Snyder Aphasia Center for Life Enhancement)

Jenny Lynn
This video contains a sample of Jenny’s spontaneous speech followed by excerpts from a SentenceShaper video.

To play this video, click its play button on lower left. Click the “full screen” icon on lower right to see the video in full screen mode. If you don’t see and hear the video,  try refreshing the web page.


Jenny Lynn was 30, and a mother of three, when she suffered a brainstem stroke. According to her therapists, the stroke left her with apraxia, but not aphasia, and other disabilities: “I am in  a wheelchair…I can move my head and right arm…I can’t speak (I use a modified sign language, but I  can say a few garbled words)”. She continues to live her life fully and shares it with others on her website. With SentenceShaper, she records sentences a word at a time, replaying and re-recording as needed. (This also helps her to initiate speech.) She adds text captions to further increase her intelligibility.  SentenceShaper has allowed her to create spoken sentences in her own voice:  “I cried the first time I heard myself say a sentence!”, she notes in her blog. (Click here for her more detailed account of how she uses SentenceShaper and other software.) She also told us that when her son heard the speech she created with SentenceShaper, he realized for the first time “that my grunts were actually words”. She is currently creating a SentenceShaper music workbook to help her practice songs. A lifelong singer, she appreciates the power of the human voice and wants to use her own voice to the fullest extent possible.

Other web pages of interest…

Click here to view a video with excerpts from a speech created on SentenceShaper and delivered to over a thousand people.