DEVELOPMENT OF ACOUSTIC ASSESSMENT SYSTEM OF DYSPHONIA FOR CLINICAL USE

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

An acoutic assessment system of dysphonia, which is hereafter called acoustic voice assessment system, has been developed. The hardware setup for the system is either a personal computer (PC) with a special apparatus which has been newly developed to perform voice input/output and fast signal processing, or a PC with a commercially available sound board. The two setups are able to realize the same function for the voice assessment except that the latter lacks the ability of making voice range profile. The system allows the user to make the assessment quite easily, since it takes a full advantage of Windows on a PC.The voice assessment data obtained from the voice assessment system can be directly utilised for further analyzes using various statistical software packages which are now commercially available on the Windows.Voice assessment can be performed in two different modes : a routine mode and a research mode. In the routine mode, the acoustic assessment is automatically made once a sustained vowel is input to the system. In the research mode, on the other hand, the user can analyze and evaluate a voice sample with a large variety of acoustic analysis tools on a step-by-step basis. The tools include not only acoustic measurements relevant to the assessment of dysphonia, but also various fundamental speech analysis methods such as sound spectrogram, formant and pitch measurement, FFT/LPC spectrum display. A speech synthesis module is also implemented to perform a rather sophisticated assessment of dysphonia as well as the normal voice.The voice assessment system can be used at voice clinics and voice laboratories.