How can i0S 17 support nonspeaking students?

If you haven't updated to iOS17 on your iPads and iPhones yet, you may want to get a move on! In the past two weeks, we've been checking out some of the new accessibility features and putting them to use in our day to day work with our nonspeaking students.

Live Speech

Live speech is an accessibility feature built into iOS17. Live speech allows you to have access to text-to-speech in any app.

Here's how to turn it on. Instead of having to switch back into a dedicated typing / text-to-speech app, you can share thoughts easily from within whichever app you're using.

• Go to Settings

• Scroll down to and tap on Accessibility

• On the right side of the screen, scroll down and turn on Live Speech

• To activate live speech in any app, triple click on the home button on your iPad or right side button on your iPhone.

Want to see it in action?

Personal Voice

Do your students prefer to communicate by typing but have the ability to use their natural speech? Personal Voice is a new accessibility feature that allows you to turn your own voice into a synthesized voice for your iPad or iPhone!

Here's how to begin the process of using personal voice.

• Go to Settings.

• Scroll down to and tap on Accessibility.

• Once you've turned on Live Speech, you can see Personal Voice as an option.

• If you don't see it, reboot your iPad or iPhone and it should show up.

• Tap Create Personal Voice, select to share it across devices and apps.

• Begin the set up process!

You need to read 150 short phrases, but you can stop and come back to it as needed.

Here's the set up in action.

But you probably want to see how it turns out, right? How much does a personal voice actually sound like that person?

Check it out here and tell us what you think in the comments!