Born with cerebral palsy, she has said little more than "yes" or "no" for the 18 years of her life.

Life was a perpetual interview - until now.

Presented Wednesday with a touchscreen-device programmed with recorded words and sentences, Cortez announced to the world a most basic human need.

A few minutes after receiving the Spanish- and English-speaking instrument, she tapped images on the screen. A voice declared: "Por favor, comer." She wanted to eat cake.

Cortez is just beginning. Over the next weeks and months she will be able to articulate a personality that can be seen in her face and in her smile, but had been kept silent. The teachers and adults around her have seen her eyes widen and watched her shift in her wheelchair as she burned to join in the conversation. Sometimes it has taken two to three weeks for her family to figure out what Cortez wants.

"Now her life is going to be easier," said her mother, Laura Cortez, speaking through a translator. "Now our life is going to be easier."

The teenager's request for a celebrity poster led to weeks of searching, store by store, because Cortez couldn't explain exactly which actor she wanted to hang on the wall. Tuesday night, so energized with excitement about the speech device, she swallowed a sleeping pill to help her rest.

Unlike some of the computer programs she had used at school, this will be mounted on her chair and will be with her at all times.

She will choose someone's voice to be programmed into the machine to tell her thoughts to the world.

"You can't imagine what this is like for somebody who can't speak, to suddenly have a voice," said Myrna Pool, a speech and language pathologist who helped procure the machine.

As one of 40 people throughout the world receiving a free Prentke Romich Co. speech device in honor of the Ohio-based company's 40th anniversary, Cortez was surrounded by family and teachers who knew what a monumental moment it was.

"The biggest advance will be she can initiate when and where she wants with whom she wants," said Mark Perry, a speech therapist who works with her.

Having enjoyed her cake, Cortez sat with friends at the Computer Center for Citizens with Disabilities Wednesday afternoon. With the speech device elsewhere, she was once again limited to a world of "yes" and "no." Would her life be different? Yes. Would it be better? Definitely.

But there was work to be done.

"It's really like learning another language," Perry said.

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* Julia Lyon can be contacted at jlyon@sltrib.com or 801-257-8748.