What support would you want in making phone calls?

People who have difficulty using the phone because of their stammer may not know that there is a Relay Service available (www.textrelay.org). Instead of speaking you can type want you want to say, perhaps into a computer or smartphone, and an operator from the relay service speaks this to the person on the other end of the call. Some relay services, though not necessarily in the UK at the moment, can also offer other services more targeted at people who stammer - see the example below.

You can have your say on the future of text relay services in the UK by taking part a major research project which is being carried out by a company called Opinion Leader on behalf of Ofcom. For details, see this Opinion Leader flyer (pdf) or go to www.oltextrelay.com.
(The documents talk about 'people without speech', but the researchers are interested in people who stammer taking part.)

For more on existing text relay services, and also making text calls, see on our website Making phone calls without speaking.

However, relay services do not have to mean you do not speak, and you may want to think about what type of service(s) you would want for stammering. Here is an example of a relay service option that we heard of being offered in Australia. A person who stammers (PWS) could both hear and speak to the other person, but the relay operator would be on the call as well. The PWS could discuss with the relay operator in advance what the latter's role should be. For example they could agree that the operator would introduce the PWS - give the person's name perhaps and say they had a stammer - and then the PWS could perhaps take it forward, speaking themself, with the operator being there to come in as needed (presumably along lines agreed with the PWS beforehand). Another reported benefit was that the other person on the call seemed likely to be 'better behaved' towards the PWS because s/he knew the operator was also on the line.

August 2010