Brother for Heather
14th September 2011
In March 2011, the Scottish Government provided us with funding to work with CereProc to develop a male Scottish computer voice: a 'brother for Heather'. The funding will also pay for a licence for the public sector in Scotland, so that the voice can be used by school-age pupils, further and higher education students, workers in the public sector, and NHS patients.
Today, 'Stuart' was officially launched by Angela Constance, Minister for Children and Young People, at Hill of Beith Primary School in Fife and the voice is now available for download. Click here to read about the launch.
Heather has been very well received by Scottish learners and we hope that the new male voice will be just as successful. It should certainly provide a better option for Scots boys with speech and language difficulties who use voice output communication aids, because at present they have a choice of speaking with very adult and very English voices, or one of a few rather low-fi Amercian children's accents, or with the Heather female voice. If you were or are a boy would you like your voice to sound like Heather, lovely though she is?
Heather and Stuart can be used to listen to:
- SQA digital exams;
- novels;
- digital textbooks;
- Microsoft Word documents;
- resources on Glow.
as well as by children who can’t speak and who use voice output communication aids.
We're pleased that we now have equality for Scottish males!
