TELEPHONE INTERFACE FOR COMMUNICATION IMPAIRMENTS

建议开发一种通信接口，以方便有严重言语和/或听力交流障碍的个人（文字用户）与言语和听力功能正常的个人（语音用户）之间的电话交流。该界面将是文本用户所在位置的基于计算机的电话增强；它不需要在语音用户端使用特殊设备。该接口将包括自动语音识别（ASR）和/或自动文本到语音合成（TTS）。ASR将把语音用户通过电话接收到的语音信号转换成可视文本；TTS系统将文本用户产生的文本输出转换为语音，通过电话传输给语音用户。第一阶段的研究将测试该通信接口的可行性。这项工作的一个关键组成部分是一个最先进的、大词汇量的、基于电话的连续语音识别器。有了这个ASR，建议的工作旨在开发一个接口，将提供简单和快速的恢复错误，使语音用户和文本用户之间的流畅沟通成为可能。在某种程度上，设想的界面可以成功实现，它将增强沟通障碍者及其亲戚、朋友和同事的通信访问和隐私。提议的商业应用提议的接口系统的市场将是数百万依赖电话中继系统的严重听力障碍或语言障碍的人。

Work is proposed to develop a communication interface for facilitating telephone communication between individuals with severe speech and/or hearing communication impairments (text users) and individuals with normal speech and hearing function (voice users). The interface would be a computer-based augmentation of the telephone at the location of the text user; it would require no special equipment at the voice user's end. The interface would include automatic speech recognition (ASR) and/or automatic text-to-speech synthesis (TTS). The ASR would transform the voice user's speech signal received over the phone to visually displayed text; the TTS system would transform text output produced by the text user to speech for transmission over the phone to the voice user. Research in Phase I will test the feasibility of this communication interface. A key component in this work is a state-of-the-art, large-vocabulary, telephony- based, continuous speech recognizer. With this ASR, the proposed work is aimed at developing an interface that will provide for easy and rapid recovery from errors, making fluent communication between the voice user and the text user possible. To the extent that the envisioned interface can be successfully realized, it will enhance communication access and privacy for communicatively-impaired persons and their relatives, friends, and associates. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION The market for the proposed interface system would be the several million people with severe hearing impairment or speech impairment who rely on the telephone relay system.