New computer-based speech-training aid for the deaf
Richard P. Lippmann, Charles S. Watson · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1979
A computer-based speech-training aid, under development, employs the form of template analysis and comparison used in current commercial systems for the recognition of isolated words or short phrases. In this aid, as in such systems, a talker's own utterances are acoustically analyzed to form reference templates to which later utterances are compared. In one training mode, the aid will identify which of a stored list of words has been spoken, and demonstrate to the deaf speaker that utterances which are produced reliably are recognizable, whether or not they are intelligible. This same mode can be used to give a child control over gamelike devices, to promote a high rate of self-paced oral output. In a second, and more novel, training mode, the child's previous most intelligible speech tokens will be used as reference templates in “successive-approximation” procedures for improving the intelligibility of important words or phrases. The use of reference templates selected by perceptual criteria makes it unnecessary that this aid be selectively sensitive to the acoustic correlates that characterize deaf speech. Preliminary data demonstrate the general feasibility of this proposed aid. [Work supported by NIH.]