Message banking

Also called Phrase banking, Legacy messages, Recorded messages

Recording whole phrases in your own voice, the way you actually say them, to play back from a device later. Quick, free, and impossible to fake afterwards.

What it is

Message banking is recording yourself saying the things you say: greetings, jokes, the names of the people you love, the way you order coffee, the thing you shout at the football. Each recording becomes a button on a communication aid, played back in your own voice with your own timing and feeling.

Unlike voice banking, it cannot say anything new. But a synthetic voice, however good, cannot do a laugh, a sigh or a "come here, you" the way you do.

Who it can help

Anyone whose speech may go, at any point while it is still there: people with motor neurone disease, Parkinson's, a planned laryngectomy or tracheostomy, a progressive dementia. It is also useful for people whose speech is intelligible some of the time: bank the phrases on a good day, play them on a bad one.

It is not for someone who has already lost clear speech, though even then a few recordings of what remains can matter to a family. And it needs the person's consent and comfort; some find it morbid to record their own voice for later. Ask, offer, and leave the door open.

How it works

Any phone can do it: a voice memo app, a quiet room, and a list. Recordings should be short (one phrase each), named clearly, and saved in a standard format (MP3 or WAV) in two places. Later, each file is loaded onto a cell in the communication aid, with a symbol or a label, so the person selects "Hello darling" and hears themselves say it.

Some services can also use banked messages to build a synthetic voice, so the phrase list does double duty. A good list has 50 to 200 phrases across greetings, family names, humour, comfort, requests, and the swearing the person actually does. Record several versions of the emotional ones.

Getting started

Tonight, with the person's agreement, open the voice memo app and record ten phrases: three greetings, the names of everyone in the household said with feeling, one joke, one endearment, and "I love you". Name each file and copy the folder to a second device.

Then keep going a few a day, in ordinary moments; ask family to list the phrases they would miss. When the time comes to load them onto a device, the AAC service will do it, but the recordings are the part only you can make.

Where to get help

The MND Association publishes practical message-banking guidance, and your speech and language therapist can help build the list and later load it onto an aid; the specialised AAC services do this routinely for funded devices. Communication Matters has family-friendly explanations of both kinds of banking.