Bruce Baker estimates there are tens of thousands of people who use augmented communication devices.

Many of them use Mr. Baker's system, Minspeak, to communicate.

That system has allowed Jennifer Lowe to graduate from college and travel around the world. She has recently been working with Mr. Baker in her role as executive director of Support Helps Others Use Technology (SHOUT) to put together a conference on employment for people who use computers to speak.

What she doesn't have, is a full time job.

The Pittsburgh Employment Conference for Augmented Communicators, which is starting today at the Sheraton Station Square and runs through Sunday, gives people who use the devices, their families and professionals who work with them time to sit down and figure out how to demolish the barriers to employment.

Miss Lowe could be the poster-girl of underemployment.

Until recently she had three part-time jobs, including her role at SHOUT. Now she is down to two.

Mr. Baker said the situation was frustrating because people want to contribute to society when they reach adulthood but they find doors closed to them because employers don't understand.

"We have tens of thousands of people in the U.S. who use augmentative communication, but we haven't built the infrastructure to get them into employment. So consequently there are tens of thousands of individuals who are underemployed or unemployed," Mr. Baker said.

The employment conference will have attendees from Australia, England, France and Germany, not quite the G-20, but that hasn't stopped the organizers from using the reference.

Mr. Baker said there are 260 people already registered for the conference, and that more will show up during the three days; so the expected attendance is 300.

While there will be academic papers presented on augmented communication and talks on employment, Miss Lowe will address the loneliness of her life before she could communicate using a computer that gave her a voice.

Her communication, early on, was people asking yes and no questions that she would answer by raising her eyebrows or shaking her head.

"I felt incredibly isolated during these years," she said in the speech she prepared to give this morning. The inability to communicate left her frustrated and feeling alone.

She said the first computerized voice she had that was understandable (the first version she had was not) lifted the frustration that came from not being able to express herself.

Other speakers will touch on the depression that accompanies joblessness and isolation.

Now the frustration, for so many people who are using the devices and can now speak, is not being able to obtain meaningful full-time work.

Mr. Baker said the Pittsburgh Employment Conference, which started 10 years ago, began because people who used the devices kept getting close to obtaining work, but never making the final cut.

"So I said, 'We have to meet together to talk about this'," Mr. Baker said. "That was our first employment conference."