Voxpix – voice training

Voxpix is developed for children with cochlear implant, speech impairments and children who need to practice their voice. But all children who want to play with their voice can have fun with the app.

Voxpix is an app for made for voice training. It is created for tablets and works on iPad or Android tablets. The app has a microphone that hears sound. The child makes sounds that makes things appear in Voxpix. The connection between cause and effect can motivate children to make sounds. It is up to you as a therapist or parent to choose what sounds you want to practice: real words, nonsense words or speech sounds. Maybe the child can make any kind of sounds in a free play?

Who can practice

• Children with cochlear implant
• Children with speech impairments
• Therapists and pre-school teachers who need a tool in their profession
• Parents who want to practice together with their children

How to practice

Press the play button and a demo starts. (This only happens the first time you use the app. If you want to see the demo again, you’ll find it behind the door and questionmark. To change difficulty level press the door and one of the toads.)

The exercise starts

Press the mike

Say something

Say something, like “beee” or “maaa”, and an item slides in. Prepare in advance what kind of sounds you want to practice: real words, nonsense words or speech sounds. If “p” isn’t working, try “paaa”.

Repeat the procedure

Press the microphone each time you make sounds. If you want to give the child an instruction while the mike is on, just turn it off temporarily, by pressing the image of the mike.

Play as a reward

The exercise is finished when the lamb starts celebrating. You can then either play with the items on the screen, just drag and drop with your finger or press the play button in the top left corner to start the next exercise.

Maybe someone coughed or said something that made an item fly in against your will? Press the the refresh button to redo the exercise.

The door in the navigation bar to the left leads to more exercises and levels. It also leads to settings and help pages.

Difficulty levels

Press the toads (behind the door) to toggle between easy and hard exercises. The easy with the baby toad contains fewer exercises with fewer items and the hard level with the sumo toad contains more.

Settings

The cog wheel (behind the door) leads to settings for the microphone. The settings has a parental lock, press for the cog wheel for 2 seconds to open.

You can adapt the microphone the voice and the room. With the help of at test you can change the settings for the sensitivity of the mike, i. e. a value in decibel. And then you can test if the new setting works properly. You can test the strength of your voices just for fun. How many decibels can you make?

The help pages

The question mark (behind the door) leads to the help pages. The help has a parental lock, press the question mark for 3 seconds to open.

Here you vill find instructions and a demo.

Valuable tips

Voxpix is a tool for voice training. The child use the voice to make things slide into Voxpix. The connection between cause and effect can motivate children to make sounds. It is up to you as a therapist or parent to choose what sounds you want to practice: real words, nonsense words or speech sounds. Maybe the child can make any kind of sounds in a free play.

A quiet environment

Voxpix reacts to sound. You press a microphone to start a sound detector. Sometimes unwelcome sounds are detected, for example a TV in the background. Because of this we recommend that you are in an environment that is as quiet as possible. When you are ready to make a sound it is a good idea to start by being quiet, press the mike and then say the intentional sound.

Noisy place, weak voice – change the settings

Control the situation with the mike

You turn the mike on every time you want to make a sound. If you want the child to copy your sound, start by saying the sound and then press the mike. Then the child’s sound is detected but not yours. Voxpix does not store any sound files on your device.

Voxpix hears sound but does not interpret speech

It is important to understand that Voxpix can’t interpret speech and can’t “hear” the difference between beee or mamama. There is no correlation between what you say and the items sliding in. You can freely choose the sounds to practice.

Why isn’t “p” working

The detected sound is slightly filtered in order to detect human sounds without detecting so much background noise. Short sounds like single consonants are because of this not detected. Long vowels work better. Try out what works best before you start systematic training. Some sounds will work better than others, so use Voxpix for the sounds that work best.

Voxpix is childproof (Privacy policy)

The app Voxpix has no advertising and no in-app-purchases. There are parental locks to settings and help. Links to the web has parental locks.

Voxpix does not:

• Store sound files
• Transmit data about the user
• Require users to share personal information
• Ask for date of birth
• Collect, transmit, or have the capability to share personal information

Devices and language

For tablets

Voxpix is created to work on tablets. If you have an iOS-device it is an iPad and if you have an Android tablet the app will work on screens larger than ordinary smart phones, which are devices with screens larger than 640dp x 480dp (4 x 3 tum, 10,16 x 7,62 cm).

Voxpix is available in two languages

Voxpix is available in English and Swedish. To change language you need to change it in the device’s settings.

Questions and more info

Frequently asked questions

Why isn’t the mike working on the iPad?

The mike has to be activated for Voxpix. Go to the iPad Settings/Privacy/Microphone and make sure it is activated for Voxpix.

Do you need more help?

Do you have any questions regarding Voxpix? Don’t hesitate to contact Milingo.

Links to the apps