Oesophageal speech

Key points

• Oesophageal speech used to be a common speaking method, before voice prostheses were developed.
• It requires intensive training and few people can truly master it.

Introduction

Oesophageal speech requires you to press little bits of air into the back of your throat, allowing the air to come back up like a 'belch'. This method can be challenging to learn.

Pros and cons of oesophageal speech

This method of voicing uses the upper part of the oesophagus as the new voice source, just like when you speak with a voice prosthesis. However, the amount of air that can be used for speaking is very small and therefore speech is usually not very fluent or natural.

Among the three different options for voice rehabilitation, oesophageal speech is the most challenging and time consuming to learn. About 1 in 5 people attempting this technique will be able to master it and it requires intensive training.

For those who master oesophageal speech the advantages are that this is a non-surgical method that does not require blocking the stoma to speak.