Costello, John

The BCH message banking process™, voice banking, and double-dipping™ / John Costello & Martine Smith

ABSTRACT
Significant advances have been made in interventions to maintain communication and personhood
for individuals with neurodegenerative conditions. One innovation is Message Banking, a clinical
approach first developed at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). This paper outlines the Message Banking
process as implemented at BCH, which includes the option of “Double Dipping,” where banked messages are mined to develop personalized synthesized voices. More than a decade of experience has
led to the evolution of six core principles underpinning the BCH process, resulting in a structured
introduction of the associated concepts and practices with people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS) and their families. These principles highlight the importance of assigning ownership and control
of the process to individuals with ALS and their families, ensuring that as a tool it is empowering and
offers hope. Changes have been driven by feedback from individuals who have participated in the
BCH process over many years. The success of the process has recently been extended through partnerships that allow the recorded messages to be used to develop individual personalized synthetic
voices to complement banked messages. While the process of banking messages is technically relatively simple, the full value of the process should be underpinned by the values and principles outlined in this tutorial


Comunicació augmentativa i alternativa
Malalties neurodegeneratives