Scottish Child Digital Voices are now available!

Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 5th August, 2019

From today you can get high quality child and teenage digital voices for use in communication aids and for reading digital information. Download the voices and find out more from our new Scottish Voice website.

For communication

The new voices have been created by CereProc (makers of Stuart, Heather and Ceitidh and many other voices) with funding support from the Scottish Government. Until today, children who use voice output communication aids only had a choice of speaking with Scottish adult voices such as Stuart and Heather, or with child voices with English or American accents.

Now, children and young people have the option to speak with:

• Andrew - Scottish boy
• Mairi - Scottish girl
• Callum - Scottish teenage boy
• Isla - Scottish teenage girl.

If you have a Windows based communication aid running Grid 3, or Grid for iOS on an iPad, update to the latest version 45 which is about to be released and you'll be able to get the new child voices immediately.

To find out how to download the voices or get them for other communication aids and apps, visit the Scottish voice website.

In 2016, the Scottish Parliament passed legislation that:

gives children and adults in Scotland of all ages and from all care groups, the right to the communication equipment and the support they need to use their communication equipment.

The new  voices have been created to support the implementation of this legislation and to enable children and young people to communicate with a voice that is more age and culturally appropriate.

It also gives more of a choice - at the moment most Scottish males who use communication aids use the Stuart voice because it's one of only two Scottish male voices that exist* and when you have a few people talking in the same room it's hard to know who's saying what because everyone sounds the same!

For reading text

The new Windows and MacOS voices are licenced for the whole of the Scottish public sector, like Heather, Stuart and Ceitidh, so they can be downloaded and installed on computers and laptops in schools, colleges, universities and for learners to use at home.

Although the child and teenage voices have been created mainly for communication aids, we think they sound pretty good for reading as well, and learners in primary school who use text readers or software like Clicker 7 will find the voices appealing and helpful.

Find out how to download and install the voices and use them with software such as Clicker 7 or Natural Reader from the Scottish voice website.

• The other Scottish adult male voice is Dodo (£10.99), who's Glaswegian. He's great for many people and for many communication contexts and situations, particularly for ordering a pint in a pub in Sauchiehall Street, but possibly not to everyone's liking.