Comparison of USA English Child Voices in iOS AAC Apps

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After I posted about the new Almagu voices in the LAMP Words for Life and the TouchChat with WordPower AAC apps, I received a few comments that some folks felt these new voices were quieter than what they were currently using.

That wasn’t my first impression of the voices so being the tech geeky SLP that I am I decided to do my own comparison experiment.

Of course I don’t have a soundproof booth and a real decibel meter but I kept the parameters equal when comparing these voices.

Test phrase: “This is a test of loudness with the Decibel 10 app”

Devices:

* iPad 8th gen at full volume measured in a quiet room in my home

* iPhone 11 at the same distance for each test using the Decibel X app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/decibel-x-db-sound-level-meter/id448155923

I only tested child voices in USA English since that is my native language and the age of voices that I used the most with patients.

TouchChat with WordPower

Almagu:

• Kessie: 72dB

• Lisa: 72dB

• Noah: 73dB

• Sophia: 72dB

Acapela:

• Kenny: 72dB

• Nelly: 73dB

LAMP Words for Life:

Almagu:

• Kessie: 72dB

• Lisa: 73dB

• Noah: 72dB

• Sophia: 73dB

Ivona:

• Justin: 71dB

• Ivy: 70dB

Proloquo2Go:

High Quality Acapela:

• Ella: 74dB

• Josh: 73dB

Speak for Yourself:

CereProc:

• Jordan: 74dB

• Andy: 74dB

Grid for iPad:

Nuance:

• Joelle: 74dB

• Noelle: 74dB

Grid for iPad also has the USA English child voices from Acapela & CereProc. The results were the same as seen above.

Results:

* All of the voices that I tested were very similar in loudness.

* I did note some slightly odd intonation in the Almagu voices. In particular the vowels were a little off and how smoothly an utterance was spoken wasn’t quite as good as the Josh & Ella voices, the Joelle & Noelle voices and the Jordan & Andy voices. But this could be influenced by how many years I have had experience listening to those vs. these brand new Almagu voices. What’s interesting is when I played the same phrases in the Almagu voices on the TouchChat and LAMP WFL websites the quality was better there compared to what I heard in the apps. *** Updated 2/13/22: The intonation in the Almagu voices has improved with the 2.35.0 update in both LAMP Words for Life and TouchChat with WordPower ***

It’s exciting to have new diverse child, teen, adult and elder voice options!

The release notes for the 2.34 app updates for LAMP WFL & TouchChat both indicated that the Almagu Spanish voices are coming soon: https://www.prc-saltillo.com/articles/app-enhancements-including-new-inclusive-voices?mode=view

Updated 10/20/22: Apple finally made iOS voices for kids. See this blog post about the Joelle & Noelle voices in iOS 16: https://omazingkidsllc.com/2022/10/20/new-ios-16-child-voices-joelle-noelle-usa-english/.

New voices have been added in several AAC apps over the past year. See the feature matching charts for the most up to date info.

Have a question? The best way to reach me is via Facebook messaging over on my OMazing Kids page: https://www.facebook.com/OMazingKidsAAC/.

Angela Moorad, MS, CCC-SLP, Founder of OMazing Kids, LLC, OMazing Kids AAC Consulting