[Hackability] speech synthesizer questions

[Susan Werner]

I have lots of difficulties with both making and processing speech (related 
to me being on the autistic spectrum) and am considering making or getting 
a speech synthesizer to be able to communicate when I'm unable to speak. What
do y'alls recommend for something that's able to do that without being too 
expensive? Someone I know recommended getting a cheap android tablet but 
iunno how expensive and reliable that'd be. I was also thinking of taking my
beaglebone ARM board (which runs Linux) and interfacing a keyboard and a 
speaker and just running some speech synth software on it.

With both those questions, there's the issue of how to set things up physically
'cuz iunno how best to do that. Does anyone have ideas?

-- 
Susan