00:00 Could you give me your loudest voice and say yeah
00:02 Yeah
00:06 Everly Paddock has spent her entire life trying to find her voice
00:13 Everly was born nearly four months premature
00:16 She couldn't breathe on her own so doctors inserted special tubes in her throat
00:22 Those tubes kept her alive, but they may have damaged her vocal cords in the process
00:30 Today Everly can speak but her voice is little more than a whisper
00:35 Her parents were devastated when they got the news. I do remember the the initial feeling was
00:41 Very just broken-hearted and and you know every every time it felt like okay once we get to this
00:49 yeah, you know this part will will kind of normalize and
00:52 It just felt like one more thing that you know
00:56 We ran up against now there may be hope on the horizon
00:59 This device translates muscle movement into speech
01:04 Here's how it works
01:06 When we speak we create sound waves using our vocal cords or folds
01:11 But we also use certain muscles the voice patch measures just one square inch and sticks to the skin
01:20 There's a thin silicon compound which picks up movement
01:24 Two sets of copper coil are attached to the silicon and in the middle. There's a layer of
01:30 Micromagnets these tiny magnets create a magnetic field each muscle movement
01:37 disturbs that field in a unique way
01:40 That produces an electric signal that passes through the coils
01:44 The voice patch then uses artificial intelligence
01:49 Matching each signal with a word we just use the machine learning
01:53 To extract the features of those the actual signal then we can then actually
01:59 We have a personalized a database
02:02 Actually, then we can power the general electricity with a database
02:08 We contract previously then we can know what words you wanna
02:12 Speak out it will take at least three years before it's on the market
02:17 But Eveli's dad can't wait to see and hear what's possible
02:22 It would be a game changer for for people that can't vocalize. I can't even
02:27 Begin to describe the daily
02:31 Interactions the daily activities that that it would have an impact on lab tests suggest the AI finds the right word
02:38 95% of the time
02:41 There's a slight delay between muscle movement and speech
02:45 But dr. Chen says it could soon disappear
02:48 Eventually, we will not feel any delay. Just like I talk to you now. I'm using my vocal fold
02:55 You can you cannot feel any delay yet, but that is the ultimate goal
02:59 We are still working toward that direction Eveli's journey has been tough
03:04 But if everything goes well, this technology could change her life
03:08 Giving her the chance to share her voice with the world
03:13 Michael Merilia CGTN
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