Can Siri help a person with dysarthria/slurred speech practise speaking more slowly and clearly? Yes, absolutely. "Who is Siri?", I hear you ask. Well, he/she is the digital voice assistant built into Apple’s iPhones and iPads.
When someone has dysarthria/slurred speech, slowing their rate of speech can really help improve speech intelligibility. When a person with dysarthria has made progress using a slower speaking rate, it can be really fun and motivating to practise with Siri.
Siri is obviously not human but they still do a great job of offering advice. More importantly, they’ll only understand and answer your question if you are speaking clearly and slowly. This means extra motivation to use those speech pacing strategies.
Please note that using Siri is best for people with mild or mild to moderate dysarthria. Siri struggles to understand more severely dysarthric speech.
Speaking at a slower rate takes effort and getting an instant response albeit from a digital assistant can be a real confidence boost. Some of Siri’s answers can also be quite amusing.
Below you will find a selection of possible things a person with dysarthria/slurred speech could ask Siri when practising slower and clearer speech.
1) What do you dream about?
Siri might tell you “Electric sheep, but only sometimes”.
2) How old are you?
Siri may tell you “I’m no Spring Chicken. Or Winter Bee. Or Summer Squid or Autumnal Aardvark."
3) What are you scared of?
Siri may reply “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Or they may say “I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”
4) Why did the chicken cross the road?
Siri may answer “Because the little chicken-shaped light was green.”
5) What is the best operating system?
Siri will mostly likely answer that MacOS is the best!
While it can be fun and motivating to ask Siri these questions, Siri is also great for setting reminders and timers. They can also tell you how the weather will be in your area and do a google search for you. All of these functional, everyday things are also great to include in speech pacing practice.
Would you like read our full list of questions and statements to say to Siri?
Download our FREE PDF “Speech Pacing Practice with Siri”. After you sign-up to receive your download, check your email and also your spam folder (just in case your free resource is hiding in spam).
